Football Function
Team of Destiny: The 1992 Dallas Cowboys
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Five, joining me on this episode per usual. My humble host, student of the game, and parents of Minna Field Terry, how we doing? I'm doing great, man. Ready to be diving into some TOD. If you are an OG, you know what that means. If you're new here, Mike and I are putting on our best to travel back in time to look at our favorite games champions. We're going to give those days. We're going to give our best to bring to you what happened via the internet. But yeah, Mike, I am doing good. How are you, man? I know today was kind of rainy. It was a gloomy day. I felt like I just wanted to be home. I just wanted to be home and cooking up a good meal for my kids and my wife and just relaxing. That's what kind of vibe I was getting today. It was a very gloomy day. I work through some rain, multiple points throughout the day. But we were still able to get ahead, you know, schedule-wise so we can have a longer weekend. You know, obviously we want to take off Friday so we can just have a three-day weekend and then the goal is to at least have like a half day tomorrow. So I mean, we have to work tomorrow on the 4th of July, which today, possibly when you listen to this, but likely you don't have work. So the fact that this is dropping on the 4th of July and you know it is America's birthday, would you say? Yeah, it is. So is it fitting that we're talking about America's team? What? Are you ready to talk about America's team, the Dallas Cowboys? It's fool can dive into it, Mike. And their first Super Bowl of three in that dominant decade that we all remember the 1990s. The Buffalo Bills, on the other hand, obviously we've talked about them in the two previous episodes. It's right for the old Bills. The last one, I mean, Jesus, they just got their asses handed to them on a silver platter. The turnovers, and I think that it's probably, you know, just judging by how this one ended up, wasn't much different. You could just expect that the mishaps are going to continue. But yeah, I'm looking forward to talking about this. Obviously, we've got a lot of Cowboys fans that listen to the show. So I'm looking forward to them finally getting a chance to relive this specific era. We've already covered two Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl champions in this series, happened like two, three years ago though, possibly two years ago. I'm not really 100% sure, exactly the date. But I know it's been done. And now we get a chance to talk about Super Bowl 27, the 1992 Dallas Cowboys. Such a good year. Very good year, right? Yes, sir. I mean, it was the year that Terrence Minnefield was born. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a Cinco de Mayo, baby. That's right, baby. So you were born coming off of that Washington Redskins victory. Right before this Dallas Cowboys dynasty really got going. I think it wasn't the birth of years truly is what sparked the dynasty. It can't be proven wrong at this point. So I think you might be onto something. But this is a lengthy or a lengthy season. A lot of stuff I want to touch on, not only just do out the season, but obviously do the playoffs. And once we get to the Super Bowl, before we do that, we waited till the end of the show accidentally to give a shout out to Andrew Black, our newest patron. So I wanted to give him another shout out here at the beginning of the show. Big shout up, big dog. Rightfully so, you know, a shout out here as we're getting into this. Is there anything you need to say though, Terry, before we get in the time machine and go back to a year that's very fond for you? Yes, I know I will forget. And hopefully, you know, this is going to be heard before, you know, anything happens. But be safe on the Fourth of July, please guys, we don't need another JPP accident. Oh my gosh, you had to do it. We do not need to relive anything like that. So be safe out there on the Fourth of July. Be very careful. Obviously, you never really know what can happen on the Fourth of July. There's always we throwing shit. It's like New Year's, you know, your party and all day pretty much a different form, essentially. It is literally all day though. But man, the cook outs just really quickly. Yeah. What's your favorite, you know, barbecue type of food. If you're talking about Fourth of July, smoked ribs. Oh, okay. I was gonna say, you know, your ideal cookout. What's your plate looking like? Yes, smoked ribs and give me some mustard mashed or potato salad. And then I'm gonna get some, if I can get some street corn, I would love that, but just corn in general. I'm very basic. There's some some baby back ribs, some nice barbecue sauce. Yeah, that'll, that'll suffice me plenty. I'm pretty simple as well. Give me a couple hotdogs, maybe a cheeseburger or something like that. Something that'll hold me over. Have some chips on the side. It doesn't matter if it's the, you know, those, those hugged juices. What are they called? Those juices, you know, those like barrel shaped. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the little, the little ones you got to poke a hole through the top because it's like that foil type of material. Discalled them. Discalled. No lid. Yeah, you know, you know, exactly what I'm talking about. You could taste them. They look like little grenades. Exactly. Yeah. Have a couple of those. Make sure you're throwing trash away in the dumpster that is not yard waste only, just from my experience with these cookouts. But nonetheless, happy 4th of July to all of you. Happy 4th of July. Summer is almost over. We're pretty much at the halfway point. But man, if you step outside and you smell just long enough, it smells like football season. It's around the corner, baby. It's creeping up. There's a lot of things that are going on here, you know, talking about, you know, the NBA free agency, which has a two scoops of hoops topic, but we're getting into that last calm before the storm here, right, right, right in the NFL off season. And this is usually whenever, you know, maybe last minute contract extensions happen. If you want to get a player locked up long term before the season starts, or sometimes this is whenever holdouts begin and, you know, players aren't reporting the camp, but I feel like just with the new CBA, that's no longer a thing, or at least as regular. But anyways, I got one more thing before we go right ahead. I don't know if you've noticed it. And if you're not from Amarillo or anything around the area, you wouldn't know kind of, you know, what I'm talking about. But have you noticed that, you know, all the schools are getting new turf and stuff? Yeah. That's that's happening around the area, like Panandals having new ones and then is there some type of yes. So it's a it's a new kind of turf. It's it's still, you know, still turf, but it's it's supposed to be more realistic. All right, it's supposed to have the feel of grass. And I've been on one Grover has it. And brother, when I tell you, it is the softest fucking field. I've I'd I'd love to get tackled on it. It was the I could feel how soft it is before I could even fucking, you know, I could even sit on the field. I could just see how soft it was. You know what I'm saying? Like it was just it was freshly laid. I mean, they still watered it like it was regular grass. And like, bro, it's it's gonna change again. I think less injuries. When I was on it, it just felt great. I don't know how, you know, playing on it is gonna, you know, impact. But as a ref just running around with just tennis shoes, bro, it was it was nice. So something in a monitor, you know, it's it's it looks nice. So I don't know. It's it's a future will future will tell as you're watching the game evolve on the field, you see what the players are wearing, you know, their helmets and things that's evolving to every year we get some new just completely state of the art, I guess. Yeah. It looks outrageous. The state of the art shit that'll help you not being concussions, not knock yourself out, you know, it's safety. I guess it only makes sense that the playing surface, the field tends to kind of evolve in the same direction. And everybody's going all the junior high schools, all the high schools around town, like everybody's doing it. I'm a grass guy myself. I would look. I love grass. I would never like to play on turf. But with all that being said, are you ready to dive in here? To this edition of the team of Destiny series, the 1992 Dallas Cowboys, specifically Super Bowl 27, which was the first of three Super Bowls. And we'll go ahead and talk about that starting now. Super Bowl 27 was an American football game between the AFC champion Buffalo Bills and the NFC champion Dallas Cowboys to decide the National Football League champion for the 1992 season. Let's go. The Cowboys defeated the Bills by the score of 52 to 17, winning their third Super Bowl in team history and their first one in 15 years. Almost kind of makes you feel like now the Cowboys were coming off of an era. Obviously the gap is a little bit larger now since they've been back to like the NFC championship game and all this playoff success that hasn't been happening. I mean like 29 years possibly, something like that. But anyways, long overdue. You talk about another long gap, 15 years is pretty long. And I'm just saying, you know, I'm sure that at that point, the Cowboys were hearing it. The Cowboys fans were probably hearing it from other fan bases like, Hey, your team has it won a Super Bowl in 15 years. It's been a long time. There's a lot of dust on those Lombardi's whatever. I'm sure that history was repeating itself or history could be repeating itself right now. You look at the roster they have. The time is now to maybe get back to that big game. But anyways, this game is tied with Super Bowl 37 as the fourth highest scoring Super Bowl with 69 combined points. And as of 2023, that has yet to been broken. The Bills became the first team to lose three consecutive Super Bowls and just the second of three teams to play in three straight Super Bowls. The Miami Dolphins played in Super Bowl six, seven and eight, winning seven and eight. And the New England Patriots played in Super Bowls 51, 52 and 53, winning 51 and 53. The following 1993 season, the Bills became the only team to both play and lose four consecutive Super Bowls on January 30, 1994 losing Super Bowl 28 to the Dallas Cowboys 30 to 13, which is going to be the next episode that we cover. The game was played on January 31, 1993 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California and is the last NFL championship game to date to be held in a non NFL stadium. It was also the seventh Super Bowl held in the greater Los Angeles area, which didn't host another Super Bowl after this one, excuse me, until Super Bowl 56 in 2022 between the Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals. 98,000 attended this game. The national anthem was Garth Brooks. The coin toss was O.J. Simpson. And the halftime show, excuse me, was Michael Jackson. The network was NBC, a 30 second commercial, $850,000. It's not necessarily, you know, a cheap, a cheap advertisement. The Bills advanced to the third consecutive Super Bowl after posting an 11 and five regular season record, but entered the playoffs as a wild card after losing tiebreakers. The Cowboys were making their six Super Bowl appearance after posting a 13 and three regular season record. It was the first time that the two franchises played or the two franchises had played each other since 1984. So like eight years, that's a long time in the NFL. Usually you play every team every four years, at least that's how it is now with the realignment. But back then, you could go these long gaps without playing. So I'm sure that there was a lot of unfamiliarity with these two organizations. You sure played out that way. The Cowboys scored 35 points off of the Super Bowl record nine Buffalo turnovers, including three first half touchdowns. Bills back up quarterback Frank Reich, who replaced injured starter Jim Kelly in the second quarter through a 40 yard touchdown on the final play of the third quarter to cut the lead to 31 to 17. Dallas then scored three more touchdowns in the fourth quarter. Quarterback Troy Eggman was named Super Bowl MVP, completing 22 of 30 passes for 230 yards and four touchdowns for a passer rating of 140.6. In response to Fox's Super Bowl counter programming of a special episode of in living color during the previous year, the NFL booked Michael Jackson to perform the halftime show for Super Bowl 27 and Jackson's performance started the league's trend of signing top acts to appear during the Super Bowl to pretty much just attract more viewers. Long story short, Fox tried to pull a fast one the year before saying, hey, we're going to air a pretty popular show during halftime to try to draw viewers away from the Super Bowl. Very petty move. The NFL responded by saying, all right, try it this time. We're going to have the King of Pop come home my beat and perform the Super Bowl. Looking for a financial institution that has fewer fees, better rates and gives back to the local community? As one of Colorado's largest credit unions, Belco offers great rates on products like our free boost interest checking and lower rates on loans, including our home equity choice line. Bank virtually anytime, anywhere through online banking and our mobile app. Becoming a member has never been easier. Visit belco.org or stop by any Belco branch membership eligibility required equal housing opportunity all own subject to approval insured by NCUA. Belco banking for everyone. Let's see here. I think I remember seeing that one too because there was a whole lot of a lot of people fainting. I think that was one of the concerts where there was a lot of people that had to be pulled off by. Was that? Yeah, I think there's a lot of people that were, you know, obviously in awe of seeing Michael Jackson in the Super Bowl, it's nonetheless like a super, a superstar performing at the halftime show. So that being Michael Jackson, I think there was, there was this video of like tons of girls just passing out. I think guys too, so probably it's just kind of crazy. The bills entered Super Bowl 27 trying to avoid becoming the first team to lose three consecutive Super Bowls. Once again, the team was loaded with Pro Bowl players, boasting 12 Pro Bowl selections. During the regular season, Buffalo's no huddle offense ranked as the number two offense in the league. And they ranked as the number one rushing offense running back Thurman Thomas rush for a career high 1487 yards and nine touchdowns during the regular season while also catching nearly 60 passes for 626 yards and three TDs. His running mate Kenneth Davis, he rushed for 613 yards, 80 receiving yards on 15 catches and added another 250 yards returning kickoff quarterback Jim Kelly at 269 completions for 300 or 3000. I apologize, 457 yards, 23 touchdowns and 19 interceptions man turnover prone the entire course of the season. You talk about 19 in the regular season and then nine obviously Jim Kelly wasn't responsible for all of them, but still the offense as a whole was just not necessarily firing on all cylinders in the season. Still made the Super Bowl 12 Pro Bowlers, but it just goes to show whenever you don't take care of the football doesn't matter how talented you are in a four quarter game. It's not a basketball series. You shit the bed on that day. It doesn't matter. I mean, it doesn't matter how many times you've lost the Super Bowl previously. It doesn't matter how long the season was to get back to the Super Bowl to try to win it and redeem yourself. If you don't bring your a game, then there's a possibility that you're going to end up being very sad like some of these build players. But anyways, wide receiver Andre Reed led the team with 65 catches for 913 yards and three touchdowns. His counter part, his running mate James Lofton contributed 51 catches for 786 yards, six touchdowns and wide receiver Don BB caught 33 passes for 554 yards and two touchdowns. And they're tied in. He recorded 30 receptions for 298 yards for six touchdowns. The bills also had one of the best offensive lines in the NFL, led by pro bowlers Will Wolford, Jim Richard and Howard Ballard, along with Sinner Kent Hull. On defense, the line was anchored by Bruce Smith, 14 sacks that season. Knows tackled Jeff Wright, six sacks and one fumble recovery. They were both fully recovered from their long time injuries or their season long injuries, I guess I should say missing most of the previous season. The bills were once again led by their trio of linebackers, Darryl Talley, Shane Conlin, and Cornelius Bennett. The secondary was aided by the emergence of second year safety Henry Jones, who was tied for the NFL lead with eight interceptions that year, returning them for 263 yards and two touchdowns. Safety Mark Kelso recorded seven interceptions while pro bowl cornerback Nate Odoms had five defensive back Cliff Hicks led the bill special teams unit. He returned 29 punts for 289 yards. That was actually top 10 ninth to be exact in the NFL that season. However, the bills quest for a third consecutive Super Bowl suffered a major setback when they lost the final game of the season to the Houston Oilers. The loss caused the bills to finish with them 11 and five record, losing out on the AFC East Championship to the Miami Dolphins based on tie breaking rules, making them a wild card team for the entire playoffs. Thus, even if they won their first playoff game, they would have to win two on the road to make the Super Bowl. To make matters worse, Kelly also suffered a strain knee ligament during that loss to the Oilers and had to miss the first two playoff games. Furthermore, their first opponent in the playoffs ended up being the Oilers. The team that, you know, they lost that pretty much derailed their season. A headline on a bills newspaper, a Buffalo newspaper, I should say stated that the bill situation quote unquote bills begin the longest road today. Talking about their, you know, long road to the Super Bowl if they wanted to get back. Now, let's talk about the resurrection of the Dallas Cowboys. Let's go America's team representing the NFC here. Super Bowl 27 saw the resurrection of the Dallas Cowboys. From 1966 to 1985, America's team made the playoffs 18 out of 20 seasons under coach Tom Landry, including five Super Bowl appearances, two Super Bowl wins. But in the late 1980s, the team suffered several losing seasons, including a 13 or a three and 13 regular season record in 1988. That was actually Michael Irvin's rookie year, just so you know. Then Jerry Jones bought the team on February 25th, 1989. And in a very controversial move, he promptly fired Tom Landry, the only coach that Dallas had ever had in 29 years as an NFL franchise. Jones replaced Landry with University of Miami head coach Jimmy Johnson, his former University of Arkansas teammate with Johnson as head coach. And Jerry Jones is a general manager. People in the NFL really thought that they could take advantage of them. Both of them lacked NFL experience. And instead of hiring coaching assistants with experience in the league, they hired ones that worked with Jimmy Johnson in Miami. Compounding this issue with the departure of the two men that brought previous success to Dallas, founding president Tech Shram and fame personnel man, Gil Brant. The Cowboys three and 13 record in 1988 did not have a silver it did have a silver lining. I apologize. It was the worst in the league. And thus gave the Cowboys the first pick in the 1989 NFL draft. Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson picked UCLA UCLA quarterback Troy Aikman, who would eventually go on to be selected to the pro football to the Pro Bowl six times. And ultimately the Hall of Fame. Obviously, as you guys know, meanwhile, Jones and Johnson immediately started to shuffle the team's depth chart to find players talented enough to build a winning team. linebacker Ken Norton Jr, one of the few holdovers from Landry's losing seasons, would later claim that he would often go into player huddle meetings or player huddles and meet players for the very first time. Then Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson made a move midway through the 1989 season that shocked many in the league. They traded their only pro ball player running back Herschel Walker to the Minnesota Vikings for five veteran players and eight draft choices. Jesus. Although the Cowboys finished the 1989 season with a one in 15 record, their worst record since the team's inception pretty much their entire existence. This was rock bottom for them. The foundations of the Cowboys returned to glory had been set. Although Dallas had the least worse record, they traded away the first pick in the 1990 draft so they could get backup quarterback Steve Walsh in the supplemental draft. Then with the 17 pick, they drafted running back Emmett Smith and the trifecta of Eggman Smith and wide receiver Michael Letterman who, like I mentioned, was drafted in 1988 was now set. Dallas also signed veteran tied in Jay Nova check away from Phoenix who went on to make six five pro balls in six years with the Dallas Cowboys. So that's just, you know, a steal right there. Talk about a cherry on top when you just drafted three players like that. Now you get it tied in like this. I mean, it almost, you know, you know, mine's been a falcon. You know, be John Roberts and Kyle Pitt one did. Then we go sign a free agent like Kirk Cousins to come in. Although we did draft our quarterback too, we doubled 50. But you know, nonetheless, I'm not going to go into that show you the draft can and always has helped it can help out real quick. Exactly. You know, we talked about it. The Cowboys just went one in 15 right in 1989 fast forward in 1992. The Cowboys finished with a 13 and three regular season record, the second best in the league. I say I worked out and the very best in team history. Although not a single one of their defensive players made the pro ball, Dallas was ranked as the number one defense in the league. Fourth and few was points allowed and ranked as the number one defense against the run, bringing back many fans memories of the doomsday defense of old. The defensive line was anchored by Jeff or Jim Jeff coat and Tony Tolbert along with future Hall of Fame pass rusher Charles Haley, who had led the NFL and sacks in 1990 and been acquired by Dallas in a trade with San Francisco. While Norden in the defensive rookie of the year, Robert Jones anchored the line backing core. The team's solid secondary was led by defensive back Kenneth Grant and James Washington, who both recorded three interceptions each and rookie quarterback Kevin Smith pause really quickly. They had the defensive rookie of the year that year too. Yeah, you know, so you're talking about all the playmakers that they drafted, that just shows man, you draft well, they draft it amazing. It could take you to the very tip top, and that's exactly what happened with the Dallas Cowboys. The last member of the secondary was defensive back Isaac Holt, who had been acquired as a part of the trade with the Vikings for Herschel Walker. So you're getting dividends back in return for these trades. You got all the draft picks, you got a contributor on defense in the secondary instant impact. You just talk about doing it right, man. The Cowboys could do something like that again. I know no one's going to do it. No one's going to trade. I'm not even going to say it. Dallas's offense finished second in the league, scoring 409 points. He's open at the best season of his career completing 302 passes out of 473, ranking second and fourth in the league. Pretty much just talk about the points and the amount of completions that he had. Fourth in the league with passing yards, 3,445, 23 touchdowns, that was third in the league. And the only through 14 picks compared to the 19, the Jim Kelly through, producing a quarterback rating of 89.6, which was third in the league. Emmet Smith led the NFL in rushing for the second year in a row with 1,713 yards. Oh yeah, scored 18 touchdowns at season two. 59 catches for 335 yards and a touchdown. Full back, Darrell Johnston was also an asset in the backfield, providing Smith with effective blocking and hauling 32 catches that I don't believe he got any touchdown drinks like that, but still. He was a threat out of the backfield for a majority of the season. Maybe get you one catch, two catches the game on average. Play action through the flats. Michael Irvin of the team's emotional lightning rod caught 78 passes for 1400 yards and seven touchdowns. Other contributors of the offense included wide receiver Alvin Harper, Jay Novicek, and obviously Dallas's offensive line was extremely dominant. Later dubbed the Great Wall of Dallas, it was led by Pro Bowlers Nate Newton, Mark Stepp Noske along with 10-year veteran Mike Tunney, free agent acquisition, John Gasek, and the youngster, Eric Williams, which is weird, me calling him a youngster considering I was not even born in this season. I'll just will say, this is the last team of destiny that I was not born for the first with young Terrence Minifield alive in the world, but. What a year. Let's talk about playoff, shall we? Let's do it. 1993. Now this is the year that I was born, so we're starting to kind of creep into it, but I was not yet conceived. Not just yet, but I'm thinking that, you know, it's about that team of destiny. And I think that, you know, this might have been, you know, my little brother's named Emmet, you know, so my dad really liked the Cowboys in the 90s. He's a raider. He's a raider's fan, but he loved Emmet Smith. He was obviously rooting for the Cowboys in the 90s. And I wouldn't be surprised if I was conceived on this night, you know, on the night, or the night that the Cowboys won the Super Bowl, just wouldn't really, you know, vibes are in the fact that I was born in October, you know, who knows, nine months, probably late January, the math is there, the math is math. But the Cowboys easily defeated their first playoff opponent of a very familiar opponent, the Philadelphia Eagles 34 to 10. Dallas's defense held the Eagles to only 178 offensive yards and sacked quarterback Randall Cunningham five times just derailed their offensive game plan. Meanwhile, the Cowboys, on the other hand, recorded 160 rushing yards and 185 passing yards, a nice balanced attack, only 15 completions, two touchdowns for Troy Aikman. While Emmet Smith ran for 114 yards and a touchdown himself, couldn't be more balanced. He just dismantled a very familiar divisional opponent. And then Dallas defeated the San Francisco 49ers 30 to 20 in the NFC championship game at Candlestick Park. This was the first time that the two teams would meet in the NFC championship game since the 49ers narrowly beat the Cowboys in 1981 in that NFC championship game on Joe Montana's late touchdown pass to Dwight Clark, known as the catch. I'm sure you actually remember whenever we covered that one, the 49ers came into the game with the league's best regular season record at 14 and two and led the league in scoring with 439 points. Remember, the Cowboys had 409. This was the only team that was really better than them. They were the number one seed. Yeah, the Cowboys went 13 and three, the Niners went 14 and two. You know, like this team were better than they were definitely better. And the Cowboys go to their house. So what's up? And they beat him. I mean, like I said, 431 points, but a big part of this game, the Cowboys built a 24 to 13 lead going into the fourth quarter. As Aikman kept a nine-minute drive with a 16-yard touchdown pass to Emmett Smith. However, Steve Young's five-yard touchdown pass to Jerry Rice cut the lead to 24 to 20 with 422 left in the game. But instead of trying to run out the clock like a normal human being would do with the running play, Troy Aikman threw a 70-yard completion to Harper. Three plays later, Aikman threw a six-yard touchdown pass to wider receiver Kelvin Martin to clinch the victory. The extra point was blocked. However, Aikman finished with two or 332 passing yards, two touchdowns, no interception. Very clean day from Troy Aikman. Let's go over to the AFC side. The Bills first defeated the Houston Oilers, 41 to 38 in overtime, overcoming a 32-point deficit. And what would become known as quote unquote, the comeback. Playing without Kelly or Bennett in the lineup, nothing seemed to go right for the Bills in the first half. The Bills offense could only score a single field goal while their defense played even worse as the Oilers quarterback Warren Moon passed for 222 yards and four touchdowns and Houston jumped to a 28-3 halftime lead. The disaster only seemed to get worse than the second half as Thomas was knocked out of the game with a hip injury while backup quarterback Frank Reich's first pass of the second half was intercepted by Bubba McDowell and returned 58 yards for a touchdown making the score 35 to 3. However, the Bills suddenly stormed back to score five unanswered touchdowns to overcome the seemingly insurmountable deficit. First, Kenneth Davis scored a one-yard touchdown run, then Buffalo recovered an on-site kick and immediately scored on Reich's 36-yard touchdown pass to Don Beebe. Reich then threw touchdowns of 26 and 18 yards to Andre Reed, so two touchdowns of Andre Reed. In the fourth quarter, Frank Reich hit Reed with a 17-yard score to give the Bills a 38-35 lead. The Oilers kicked a field goal late in the game to send it to overtime, but Nate Odom's interception in the extra period set up kicker Steve Christie's game-winning field goal to give the Bills the biggest comeback win in NFL history at the time. The record was surpassed by the Minnesota Vikings eraser of the 33-point deficit in their 39-36 routing of the Indianapolis Colts during week 15 of the 2022 NFL regular season, but the Buffalo victory remains the largest comeback in NFL playoff history. Buffalo then recorded a 24-3 win on the road against the Pittsburgh Steelers, the AFC Central champions with the AFC's best regular season record at 11 and 5. Although Jim Kelly and Thurman Thomas had not recovered enough to play in this game, Reich threw for 160 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions while Davis rushed for 104 yards in a touchdown. Meanwhile, the defense redeemed themselves after giving up 38 points against the Oilers by holding the Steelers to only a field goal. The Bills then, because they remember they were a wildcard team, they had a third playoff game before getting to the Super Bowl. They had to beat the Miami Dolphins 29-10 in the AFC Championship game. The Dolphins were coming off of a 31-0 blowout win over the San Diego Chargers, but Buffalo's defense dominated the Dolphins offense, intercepting quarterback Dan Marino twice, recovering three fumbles and limiting Miami to just 33 rushing yards. Although Buffalo's offense had trouble scoring touchdowns because Kelly and Thomas were rusty coming back from their injuries, Christie scored five field goals to make up for the difference. Kelly did connect with Thomas on a screen pass for a 17-yard touchdown and Davis ran it in from two yards out for another score. As a result, the Bills became the fourth wildcard team to advance to the Super Bowl. This marked the first time since the AFL NFL merger that the two Super Bowl teams each won their conference championships on the road with Dallas winning in San Francisco and Buffalo winning in Miami. The only time it happened prior to 1992 was in 1996, which was Super Bowl 1, when Kansas City won at Buffalo and Green Bay won at Dallas. This was happening in 1997 with Green Bay winning in San Francisco and Denver winning in Pittsburgh and then in 2012 with San Francisco beating the Falcons in Atlanta and Buffalo, or I'm sorry, Baltimore beat the Patriots in New England. And in 2018, with the Rams winning in New Orleans, no missed call there by anybody and the New England got a win in Kansas City. Even though the Bills had more experienced players in the Cowboys, Dallas was favored to win Super Bowl 27 based on the recent dominance of NFC teams in the Super Bowl. Some riders and fans were starting to compare Buffalo to the Super Bowl losers like Minnesota and Denver who just couldn't get over the hump. Still, many thought that the inexperienced Cowboys might panic under the pressure of playing in their first Super Bowl and thus make a number of mistakes, although some thought Buffalo's no-huddle offense could eventually wear down and dominate Dallas's young defense. Finally, Jimmy Johnson was looking to become the first head coach to win a college football national championship, which he did in 1987 with Miami and a Super Bowl. This became the last of five Super Bowl games played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Two other Super Bowl games were played nearby, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. This was the last time a Super Bowl was hosted in a different stadium than the city's NFL team. As the Rose Bowl has been considered more suitable than the Coliseum for high-profile games, Los Angeles would not host another Super Bowl for almost three decades since I had no NFL team from 1995 to 2015. And having an NFL team in a market or region has long been a pretty much requirement for bidding on the NFL's championship game, which is known as the Super Bowl. Los Angeles hosted Super Bowl 56 in 2022 at SoFi Stadium and any other Los Angeles Super Bowl moving forward where we played there at not at the Rose Bowl. Since the 1990s league, since the 1990s, the league has given preference awarding the Super Bowl the brand new or recently renovated NFL stadiums. So pretty much saying, "Hey, if you build a new stadium, we'll get you a Super Bowl." The Falcons have already hosted one, Minnesota has already hosted one, Vegas has hosted one last year. Where are they going this year? They're going to Vegas, actually, this year. Yeah, Vegas this year. That was Florida last year. I thought that Vegas was last year. It was. Vegas was last year. Yeah, it was. Definitely it was. So what's this year? New Orleans? Oh, it fucking is. Damn it. It's in New Orleans. Anyways, that's just, you know, you never want it. But although that gives the Falcons a hell of a lot of motivation to get back there, but I'm not even going to bring that up. Looking for a financial institution that has fewer fees, better rates, and gives back to the local community? As one of Colorado's largest credit unions, Belco offers great rates on products like our free boost interest checking and lower rates on loans, including our home equity choice line. Bank virtually any time, anywhere, through online banking and our mobile app. Becoming a member has never been easier. Visit belco.org or stop by any Belco branch. Membership eligibility required equal housing opportunity, all-own subject to approval, insured by NCUA. Belco, banking for everyone. This was the first meeting between Buffalo and Dallas since 1984, when the O and 11 bills won a 14 to three game at home with Greg Bell running for an 85-yard touchdown in the game's first play. The Cowboys lost a playoff berth because of this game, as they lost a tiebreaker with the NFC East rival New York Giants. And as the designated home team in the annual rotation between the AFC and NFC teams, the Cowboys elected to wear their home white uniforms and silver pants, forcing the bills to wear their blue uniforms with white pants. So let's get into it. The game got off to a promising start for Buffalo after both teams were forced to punt on their opening possessions. Bills wide receiver Steve Tasker blocked Cowboys punt or Cowboys punter Mike Saxon's ensuing punt, knocking the ball out of bounds of the Dallas 16-yard line. Four plays later, running back Thurman Thomas, scored on a two-yard touchdown run to give the bills an early 7-0 lead. Dallas then reached their own 40-yard line on their next drive, but at an illegal formation penalty on the offensive tackle, Mark Tunney nullified a running-back MS-MIS 12-yard run. Quarterback Trojekman then threw two consecutive incompletions, and the Cowboys were forced to punt again. The bills subsequently advanced to midfield with the eight over roughing the passer penalty on Dallas Cowboys, the defensive tackle Leon Lett, and a 21-yard pass from quarterback Jim Kelly to wide receiver Andre Reed. Then the wave of turnovers began, and I'm sure that they wish they could just stop right there. You get that 7-0 lead, you get the ball back, you're driving down the field, and you just want to get lost in the moment, you want to go to sleep. You just want to wake up and tell me, yeah, my team finished, right? They got the job done. But after that, I just feel like things kind of went a little bit south for the team that plays in the Northeast. Like I said, the wave of turnovers began on the next play. A blitz by safety Kenneth Gant led to Kelly throwing an interception to safety James Washington, who returned the ball 13 yards to the bills 47-yard line six plays later, aided by a 20-yard catch by wide receiver Michael Irvin on third and 16. The Cowboys tied the game on Akeman's 23-yard touchdown pass to Jay Nova check. Buffalo had to start at their own 10-yard line following the ensuing kickoff due to an illegal block by Bill's linebacker Mark Maddox. On the first play of the drive, defensive then Charles Haley strips sack Jim Kelly, and defensive tackle Jimmy Jones picked the ball out of the air at the two-yard line and dove into the end zone for a touchdown to give Dallas a 14-7 lead. The Cowboys had scored two touchdowns in a span of 15 seconds. That's the shortest time between touchdowns and Super Bowl history. The Cowboys nearly forced yet another turnover when Bill's wide receiver Brad Lamb returned the ensuing kickoff 33-yard to the Buffalo 37-yard line before Gant stripped the ball from linebacker or he had the ball stripped from him from linebacker Keith. I don't even know. Gogeneous? Gogeneous? Yeah, something like that. I'm going to leave that one to you. I think you might have been on with it. But, you know, getting a G baby. Pretty much a Buffalo Bill's linebacker recovered the ball after one of their Buffalo Bills return specialist fumbled the ball. He saved the Cowboys from getting an early big time lead in this game although it really didn't matter but pretty much they ran the ball twice for 14 yards in the first quarter. He moved on to the second quarter and on the very first play Jim Kelly had a 40-yard completion to Andre Reed set up a first in goal for the Bills at Dallas four-yard line but the Bills defense or the Cowboys defense immediately tightened up and Buffalo failed to score on three rushing attempts and on fourth down Jim Kelly threw an interception to Thomas Everett and it was a touch back. So they were right there on the four-yard line. They get nothing. Let's go to the 20. Despite being forced to punt following that interception, Dallas began to take over the game from there. On Buffalo's next drive, linebacker Ken Norton Jr., who's the Cowboys linebacker delivered a hard hit on Kelly that re-injured his knee and you know sprained or he sprained that knee earlier in the season and playoff star Frank Reich took in or he took Kelly's place and had to fill in for the rest of the game. Reich started out well completing his first two passes including a 38-yard completion to Reed advancing the ball to Dallas's 22-yard line while Davis was also a major contributor on the drive rushing five times for 28 yards. However Thomas was stopped for no game on third and one at the four-yard line rather than tempted another fourth down play near the goal line the Bills settled for a field goal here and it was a 21-yard field goal to cut their deficit from 14 to 7 to 14 to 10 with 3 24 left in the half. The Cowboys exploded in the closing minutes of the first half. First they responded to the Bills' field goal in their next possession with a five-play 72-yard drive which considered a pair of passes from Eichmann to Smith and Jay Nova check for 17 yards followed by a 38-yard run by Emma Smith to give Dallas a first down inside the Buffalo 20-yard line as the half came to the two-minute warning. Eichmann then finished the drive with a 19-yard touchdown pass to Michael Irvin increasing the lead to 21 to 10. On the first play of the Bills ensuing drive Thomas caught a swing pass from Wright but fumbled the ball while being tackled by Leon Lett and Jones recovered it at the Buffalo 18-yard line. Eichmann then threw another touchdown pass to Michael Irvin to give the Cowboys a 28 to 10 lead. Irvin's two touchdown receptions made him the seventh player to do so in a Super Bowl. Irvin also became the second player after the Redskins wide receiver Ricky Sanders in Super Bowl 22 to catch two touchdown passes in a single quarter. I apologize I'm trying to spit this out here. Furthermore Irvin's two catches occurred in a span of 18 seconds. The fastest pair of touchdowns scored by the same player in Super Bowl history still has not been broken. With just over a minute left in the first half the Bills barely avoided another turnover when Davis recovered a fumbled handoff from Frank Reich but two plays later cornerback Larry Brown intercepted Frank Reich's pass at the 28-yard line to preserve the Cowboys eight-point lead going into halftime and obviously like we mentioned halftime Michael Jackson put on a show for the ages and then you move on to the second half the third quarter Dallas then took the opening drive of the second half in advance to 77 yards in 11 plays which included two receptions with Michael Irvin for 37 yards four runs by Emmett Smith for 28 yards however on third and goal at the Buffalo two-yard line eight men's pass to Nova check in the end zone was overthrown forcing Dallas to settle for a field goal just a 28 year or a 20-yard chip shop increasing chip shot increasing their lead to 31 to 10 after the Bills next possession resulted in a punt and the Cowboys resulted on a turnover on Downs Buffalo responded to Dallas's Philgo with a five-place 61-yard drive which ended in a 40-yard touchdown pass from Frank Reich to a wide receiver Don Beebe on the last play of the third quarter despite their five turnovers in the first half Buffalo only trailed 31-17 going into the final corner and after their comeback from a 30-point or 32-point deficit to the Houston Oilers in the wildcard game a two-touchdown comeback seemed like it was fully in their capabilities right seemed like light work almost however the Cowboys said yeah we're not the Oilers we might play in Texas but as you will find out here in the coming years the Oilers kicked rocks meanwhile we're putting rocks on our championship rings oh i like what you did there however Cowboys tightened up on both offense and defense they held the Bills scoreless for the rest of the game on Dallas's next possession Smith fumbled the ball which was recovered by Troy Eggman but it did result in a 12-yard loss two plays later eight men completed an eight-yard pass or 18-yard pass to him at Smith but it brought up a fourth and one and the Cowboys punted during the punt Bills quarterback cornerback Cliff Hicks fumbled the catch and he had the fall on the ball on the Buffalo 12-yard line from there the Bills did not gain a yard and punted back to the Cowboys impossible before we move on you can't fumble a catch but go ahead fumbled the yeah yeah i get what you're saying buff the punt whatever you want to call it after an 11-yard run by him at Smith Eggman threw a 45-yard touchdown pass to wider receiver Alvin Harper giving Dallas a 38-17 lead and essentially putting the game away right then and there however the Cowboys were not done adding to their lead on the second play the Bills next possession ever intercepted a pass from Reich and returned it 22 yards the Buffalo eight-yard line setting up another Emmett Smith touchdown just three plays later and then two plays after that or two plays into Buffalo's drive i should say Frank Reich fumbled the ball high snap shotgun formation Ken Norton jr recovered the loose ball and returned it nine yards for a touchdown capping off the scoring of the night at 52-17 the 21 points by the Cowboys in the fourth quarter was the most by a team in the fourth quarter matched by the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 54 the Cowboys also became just the second team to score two defensive touchdowns in the Super Bowl the Raiders also did so in Super Bowl 18 with a block punt and an interception return one of the more memorable moments of this game came after the Cowboys had built a 35-point lead. Cowboys defensive end Jim Jeffco stripped sack Frank Reich and Leon let picked up the ball with no pretty much nobody in front of him appearing ready to score a 64-yard fumble return but BB ran a shadow or a show boating Leon let down from behind and stripped the ball just before he crossed the goal line as the ball rolled out of the end zone let would redeem himself when he sacked Frank Reich to end the game and give the Cowboys their first championships in 1978 obviously but that wasn't right moment for him after the game in an otherwise dejected Buffalo locker room they just lost the third straight Super Bowl 52-17 Bill's owner Ralph Wilson went straight up to BB and thanked him for his hustle and perseverance in that moment. Smith was the top rusher of the game rushing for 180 yards and a touchdown while also catching six balls for 27 yards. Michael Irvin was the Cowboys leading receiver with six catches for 114 yards two touchdowns Jay Nova check he had seven for 72 and a touchdown Leon let recovered a sack from recovery and two force fumbles massive game from Leon let Frank Reich and Kelly combined for 22 of 38 completions for 276 yards and a touchdown or but he also threw for four picks Thurman Thomas who gained 2113 yards rushing and receiving yards during the season obviously he only got 29 rushing yards and receiving yards that's combined he had less than 30 yards total in this game Reed was the bill's leading receiver in this game eight catches for 152 a lot of it came in garbage time obviously Bill's running back Kenneth Davis was there leading Russia with 86 yards so yeah Thurman Thomas got 30 total we can tell you he just wasn't right he got injured in that game he injured his hip clearly I mean there's no way he's getting less than 30 yards in this game and his backup's gonna get 86 you know so I mean he also got 16 receiving yards return to kick 21 so Kenneth Davis had 123 total yards looking for a financial institution that has fewer fees better rates and gives back to the local community as one of Colorado's largest credit unions Belco offers great rates on products like our free boost interest checking and lower rates on loans including our home equity choice line bank virtually anytime anywhere through online banking and our mobile app becoming a member has never been easier visit belco.org or stop by any belco branch membership eligibility required equal housing opportunity all owned subject to approval insured by ncua belco banking for everyone okay it happened well fullo had seven possessions what's ended in four plays or less because of turnovers and resulted in five Dallas touchdowns you never win that way Irvin and Bill's wide receiver Andre Reed each had over a hundred yards receiving making it the first time that players from different teams had at least a hundred yards receiving in a Super Bowl Irvin had one 14 yards while Andre Reed obviously at 152. Reed's total is the highest for a player and then in a Super Bowl for the losing team by virtue of his national championship with the Miami Hurricanes in 1987 Jimmy Johnson also became the first coach to win an NCAA division one FBS national championship and a Super Bowl only two coaches only two coaches have since accomplished that Barry Switzer for the OU Sooners and obviously the Dallas Cowboys in 1995 and then Pete Carroll USC in the Seattle Seahawks aceman Irvin and Norton also provided commentary for the Dallas Cowboys 1992 installment of America's game the Super Bowl champions narrated by Alec Baldwin the 1992 Cowboys were also ranked fifth out of the first 40 Super Bowl winning teams as selected by a 53 person panel of blue ribbon which is experts of the NFL this was the Cowboys highest ranking Super Bowl champion team so a lot of people think this is the best team in Dallas Cowboys history rightfully so and it's hard to disagree you know this is just as dominant as it gets yeah I truly think that on both sides when you look at their starting offense right that offensive line the Great Walla Dallas you look at the tight end J Nova check five pull over the six years Amos Smith the all-time leading rusher Troy Eggman pro football Hall of Famer Michael Irvin this is the best orchestrated offense of all time I don't care about production I understand the oh seven Patriots you look at the greatest show on turf with the you know the Rams the Rams those teams didn't play the 1992 Dallas Cowboys right I'll go on record and I will say that that's this is the best orchestrated offense when you talk about just being well-rounded it does not get better than this and that's why when you run it back this team wins the Super Bowl again next year like and that's why like it's hard to go back to back but that's just how damn good this Cowboys team was and they started something special they got it done early and you know that's that's a big time moment for this franchise and not only did they get it done on the field of the front office they came together and obviously they created something that will go down in history that you know obviously football nerds like us dive into and look at and hopefully you know teams of today could take a little something of those pages and probably implement that into something you know they want to get back too so I mean as a championship team you probably want to see the ins and outs and how they did it why they did it and you know maybe kind of copy that so your success could copy could maybe copy you know their success in this in the 90s so this was a great team obviously this probably was a couple of years that ran were a lot of the the bandwagoners jumped on this is where we will see a lot of the you know the 90s guys a lot of Cowboys fans were born yes I say that's where this is where I began this is where I was born in the 90s where the Cowboys had this run so this is where this era kind of you know got its kick and I'm looking forward to getting into it man yeah I've been waiting for this to be honest getting into the 90s that's kind of like the first decade that I'm actually excited to cover me too man and the fact that they're you know they're just getting juicy and juicy I'm really looking forward to covering the next team of destiny especially the ones we've actually yes sir gonna get interesting for sure but thank you guys so much for tuning in to this episode of the football function podcast uh hopefully you're a certified funky like our boy Andrew Black but if you're not what are you waiting on follow suit do do like what he did yeah get this episode ad-free but not only that it's the best way you can support the show another great way you can support the show is by spreading the word telling your friends telling your family that they should be listening to the football function podcast just like you we're gonna have a two scoops of hoop episode coming out soon I think C.M. is going to record something maybe a Dallas Mavericks teaser his team sign played Thompson I think he's excited I think he's feeling the juices that's something to be excited about and I think that you know he's gonna explain to all of us why the Dallas Mavericks are going to repeat as Western Conference champions and this time they're gonna finish the job isn't it so I can't wait to hear that episode but uh you got anything to say before we sat or sign off here you got any shout outs anything like that and I will say I apologize this was an episode where you're gonna talk about the fastball I mean no need to apologize don't even finish that sentiment because you did amazing pal that was that was a lot of reading and for a non-probably English teacher to anybody that's gonna be a fucking lot that's a lot to read yeah and I just had a you know eight leg parlay fall out two didn't hit so I got six out of eight damn it is what it is you know don't bet the over was it my overs let me see no actually I bet the under I bet the under on oh wait okay cool it's fantasy points man fantasy points are what did it to me I got to stay away from freaking fantasy points I don't know what the hell I'm doing in fantasy baseball anyway so the fact that I even included those and those are the two that screwed me yeah this was a seven hundred dollar uh pie I thought I got it right man well I will go ahead and let you go and I will let the funky go as well I'm a damn good the july whatever you're doing whenever it is to be for some of this have a safe for the july but also have a damn good weekend more passionately in the direction of your dreams I'll talk to you soon looking for a financial institution that has fewer fees better rates and gives back to the local community as one of Colorado's largest credit unions bell go offers great rates on products like our free boost interest checking and lower rates on loans including our home equity choice line bank virtually any time anywhere through online banking and our mobile app becoming a member has never been easier visit bellco.org or stop by any bellco branch membership eligibility required equal housing opportunity all own subject to approval insured by ncua bellco banking for