Redskins & Cowboys Rivalry Special

[Music] this is a presentation of the pro football hall of fame and hopes that were high in the heat of september can wilt and die in the chill of november november can be cold and gray november can be surly with bitter rain upon the world and winter coming early [Music] [Music] this team means more to me than just another professional football team and that's why i always did everything in my power to help make this organization and team the very best it could possibly be i want to say a big thanks to all those fans because i in my heart believe you're the greatest fans i'm gonna tell you this you're the greatest fans of all the pro sports hey you made it what it was you made that atmosphere what it was you were the ones that prompted these players to play like they played you're a redskins fan you must hate the dallas cowboys there's no ifs anderbots i love fans you sign on to the washington redskins you sign on to hate the dallas cowboys well when you become a dallas cowboys everybody everybody come red skin we talk about the difference between any other team and playing the washington redskins that's all they put on tv the whole week the cowboys redskins and they were going out in the community talking records didn't matter when this game happened you could be on 9 or 13-0 this is going to be probably the one one of the hardest games that you play in and it was like an opportunity for me to play in those games and i knew week in and week out that it was going to be a grudge match the whole game if you beat the cowboys you won the super bowl there [Music] if you don't make the post season and you beat the cowboys it was an okay season for redskins fans there are arguably other great rivalries on the football field michigan versus ohio state but ann arbor versus columbus michigan versus ohio the longest running rivalry in pro football is green bay versus chicago yes there is something to that longevity but does that match up include city culture and ownership when you say cowboys versus redskins it is about two teams who between them have been to the super bowl 13 times two teams that are in the top five most valuable sports franchises in the world two teams that between them have an nfl record for single game attendance the top 10 single season attendance totals and the record for most consecutive sellouts two teams who have the highest television ratings in a league that dominates national television and two teams with the most symbols of pomp and circumstance the dallas cowboy cheerleaders and the oldest and best fight song hail to the redskins dallas and washington are the nation's fourth and sixth biggest metropolitan areas but they're number one in two and biggest growth per year and it is safe to say that a cowboys redskins game engages more fans between its cities than any other two teams you'll get it from the owner you'll get it from the coaches you'll get it from the fans you'll get it from the milkman if he's delivering your milk or the newspaper man that's dropping off the newspaper everybody talks about you got to understand the depth of beating the washington redskins if you play for the dallas cowboys the rivalry even goes back to when the cowboys became a franchise in 1960. the cowboys wanted to have a team and george preston marshall wouldn't let them get one it had to be a unanimous decision by all the nfl owners so the cowboys owner at the time actually bought the rights to hail to the redskins and blackmailed the redskins into allowing them to be a team so the cowboys blackmailed the redskins to let them get a franchise the redskins have 20 hall of famers the cowboys 16. the first class that entered the hall of fame was in 1963 and there were two redskins inductees owner george preston marshall he who held hostage the cowboys getting a franchise and sammy baugh the legendary quarterback and punter was also inducted thank you harry i feel as other men on the program who have been up here i'm very honored to be inducted into pro football hall of fame to me the people who should be honored are the owners mr preston marshall president of the washington redskins i had the privilege of playing with him his team for 16 years i learned to respect mr marshall i've learned to love mr marshall and i've had the honor of playing some great football players i'll never forget those good lines up in front of me the good past receivers i had the opportunity to thank you very much the redskins had a 23-year head start and at one point in the rivalry had almost double the amount of hall of famers especially when joe gibbs won three super bowls with three different starting quarterbacks a record in and of itself he was inducted in 1996. i gotta tell you no matter where you no matter where who you play for who you coach for i'm gonna tell you something and some of the other players up here i'll tell you this when you walk out in that stadium at rfk it's one of the greatest feelings in pro sports but there was no one on either side of the ball that stoked and milked the rivalry more than george allen who was elected to the hall in 2002. listen up gang here's a bowl for a god that works real real hard and he's been in a lot of these games before but it took a lot of cast offs a bunch of redskins and a hell of a good group of guys to get him his second one coach go down my dad's first season with redskins was 71 and we believe tech sram got the nfl to give our first three games were at st louis at new york and at dallas so they gave us the first three games on the road all division games and we went three at all winning at the cotton ball that game three charlie herway had a great run for about 57 yard touchdown and john wilbur had a great game a lot of former cowboys had good games in it winning that game was was a significant game for the redskins and this community because when we came back to washington that night on the flight we almost couldn't land because the fans had rushed the tarmac at dulles airport and the crowd that greeted us after being 3-0 and winning that game of 5 000 people i think that ignited this market to realizing a success a successful football team really brings this community together and keep coming on every play just remember this 40 men together can't lose dad was superstitious and one time he he's noticed what i was wearing and he said i thought you wore white when we won that game that previous game and i said i i might have you know i didn't think of it that way i wasn't that superstitious as a kid i am i am now because i learned that from dad he wanted me to wear the winning outfit uh it didn't matter if it was cold hot doesn't matter we don't change a winning routine in anything we do and my mom knew that as well he'd have to have the rice pudding after the game he had to have his peanut butter and jelly on thursday because that was the winning combination great win we beat them out their own game yeah you out hit them now we bring those damn cowboys next the cowboys had fallen on hard times in the 80s after losing the nfc championship game to the 49ers in a game made famous for the catch they were sold to jerry jones in 1989 and his first season was disastrous finishing with a 1-15 record no matter what the washington redskins the years that they won a super bowl we can come in and beat them we wanted 15. that was the only team we won dallas the one year with uh troy aikman and emmon and all those guys when they assembled that team you remember that one year their one win was against us with all of our excitement and enthusiasm we went out that first year and just won one football game in 1989. the things soon changed they changed with really great ability and great passion but as general manager he drafted and traded for five future hall of famers cutting into the redskins hall of fame lead michael irvin taught me the heart of smiling in the face of adversity the rougher it was the louder he land he was a football player you see i knew jerry had put all he had into purchasing the cowboys and that's the way i see jerry he's a man that's willing to give all he has and all he wants is to bring the cowboy family super bowls emmitt smith if i've ever seen a man of gold that followed him was emmitt smith so jerry thank you for believing in me as a football player and knowing that i can get the job done emma smith is the all-time leading rusher and the great thing about that his rookie year he said to me he was going to become the all-time leading rusher jerry jones taught me so much about family taught me so much about business taught me a lot about life jerry's done so many great things my daughter brianna she had leukemia and jerry opened up cowboys stadium to do the biggest bone marrow drive in the history to try to help me save my daughter's life jerry when i got traded to the cowboys the first handshake i saw the first handshake i received with jerry jones you know i got off the plane with eight cameras looking i couldn't see nothing and there's a hand stick off all right i'm jerry jones got a dollar owner the dollar cowboys welcome to dallas you know when you are amongst so many people there's so many voices out there and you make a big play and you're sitting there on the sideline and you can sort of hear that heartbeat it gets louder and louder and louder and when you can figure out how to put that defibrillator on yourself and shock somebody in their chest and make the whole heartbeat go quiet that's when you feel like you've done something important and you made a big play for your team but even as the cowboys began to win more games on the field and in the rivalry and creep up on the hall of famer ladder there was one to date they could not catch so wide receiver art monk holds the record for the longest ovation in the history of the hall of fame over five minutes coming full circle in this hall of fame redskins cowboys rivalry 54 years after the redskins had their owner in the hall of fame here comes a man that outside of george allen still uses the rivalry to his full advantage you know jerry and the coaches going back all the way to the landry days going back to uh you know jerry telling us about the owners how maybe they would bicker back and forth or they would you know have some type of bed or something or the players going back and forth even when you walk through the locker room all the way down through the tunnel they'll do little things where they would let the cheerleaders walk by to try to distract you or the stadium's dripping all this nasty water and you gotta going through this muggy hole this tunnel that you're going through and you hear all the fans outside you know throwing batteries and yelling at you and telling you what type of team you are yeah it was a crummy stadium man we had crud hanging off of it and the fans are right on top of everybody but i'm gonna tell you this when people came in there it was hard to beat us and then you finally get out there and you see your opponent on the other end of the sideline and they have just as much tenacity just as much hate for you on the other side of that sideline and it's just you feel and you know the reason why you put those pads on that's to go to battle looking back on the memory our lives really are better left to chance i could have missed the pain but i've had to miss the dance that's football inspiration dreams we got here with the love of football and love of family this rivalry is so much more than the game on the field that is only the product of a deep passion and envy between fans cities organizations owners and the penultimate hall of famers it is not about wins and losses it is about a cultural pride that both teams represent that has captured the heart of the nation who only wishes that they had a rivalry with so much meaning [Music] i just saw a guy coming here had a sticker two stickers on a van cowboy stickers i normally i say something to him [Applause] it's it's alive you know when when they hired uh mike shanahan to come here and hire coach gruden to come here we explained to them you know this just so you know we want to win understand don't you ever think before we play a dallas game and the press says how are you going to go to say this is another game the fans do not want to hear that this is a dallas everyone kind of declared dallas america's team and frankly i take offense to that [Music] the stars at night are big and bright deep in the heart of texas the prairie sky is wide and high deep in the heart of it is my pleasure to introduce coach tom landry it makes it a little bit special today to have roger sabach you know and present me for induction in the hall of fame i could talk for hours about roger staubach the odds were against him from the outset the cowboys drafted roger as the future choice in the 10th round in 1964 when he still had a year in the naval academy and four years of active duty ahead of him i never thought we'd ever see this heisman trophy winner in a football unit a cowboys uniform of course i went on to be drafted by the dallas cowboys and learned how to be a professional quarterback not only as a runner but also as a passer the rabbits rush around the brush deep in the heart of texas the cowboys cry [Music] [Applause] [Music] coach landry made a great comment in that meeting he stood up and he said this he said i really didn't think it was very important for me to get in the hall of fame but i did think it was important for all my players sometimes when we played well during the course of a long season joe gibbs would give us off monday and tuesday dallas week we didn't get a monday off no matter what washington can be one of the worst teams and they will still always either beat us or give us those tough tank games that's what makes that rivalry so great i think this team can feel it feel the intensity the importance of it you know you don't go in the locker room and play the music anymore it's sheer quietness where you hear all the guys being very very focused on what's the task i mean i grew up watching westerns and cowboys growing versus redskins and then got a chance to play for the dallas cowboys and see that rivalry up close and tasted the halls of congress understand that it's redskins cowboys and they have to pick a side and it doesn't matter if you're a senator from idaho you've got to pick a side on the cowboys cowboy week is special in the nation's capital

Channel: Eric Welshenbaugh

Views: 17,097

Keywords: cowboys, redskins, dallas, washington, dc, halloffame, nfl, pfhof, football, rivalry, profootball, irvin, jerryjones, aikman, bruceallen, georgeallen, joegibbs, emmittsmith, capitolhill, congress

Id: HUY-5YyOnDk

Length: 19min 20sec (1160 seconds)

Published: Fri May 29 2020