As in Damn Tired … of each other. Which is what Jerry (not Tommy Lee) Jones, 51, and Jimmy (not Van) John son, 50, all but acknowledged last week with the stunning announcement that Johnson was resigning as coach of the two-time Super Bowl champion Dallas Cowboys. That is the team Jones owns and operates with an iron Will, not to mention brain, and a true Stein-wanna-be-brennerian activism. At least it looked like Jerry and Jimmy side by side in front of the Cowboys’ banner. It was when they opened their mouths and began a truly absurd charade of orgasmic praise that witnesses seriously questioned whether the pair weren’t actually actors. Vying for an Oscar for Best Makeup.
Just seven days before, Jones had sat in an Orlando, Fla., watering hole and said he “should have fired Johnson” and that “500 coaches could have won the Super Bowl” with the Cowboys. And it was but four days earlier that Johnson had announced he could no longer trust Jones and that winning a third straight Super Bowl-a feat no coach has accomplished-would have no meaning with Jones as owner. Suddenly, though, here they were smiling and sharing a stage-which was the problem all along.
From the hallowed halls of the NFL to the boardrooms of the TV networks, the split was no small thing. Tommy Lee Jones himself, an impassioned Cowboys fan, was shocked (albeit not that unhappy) when told the news while filming baseball scenes in Birmingham, Ala., for his title role in the film “Cobb…… Damn,” said Tommy Lee. “Now I finally got a shot at my dream job.”
That opportunity lasted about as long as it took Johnson’s old and bitter rival, former University of Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer, to drive from his Dallas hotel to Cowboy headquarters the day after Johnson resigned. As quickly as a Cowboy can say fait accompli, Jones signed Switzer as his coach. “I was surprised,” Johnson told NEWSWEEK. “I thought Jerry was throwing out Switzer’s name just to upset me.”
Jones first dropped the name on that infamous evening at the NFL off-season meetings in Orlando. After Jones had approached johnson’s group to propose a toast to the Cowboys and the group-including former Cowboy employees Jones had fired-had not responded avidly enough, Jones stalked off. Which led to: Jones’s barroom conversation in which he said he might fire Johnson and hire Switzer. Which led to: Johnson departing the meetings in his own huff. Which led to: trading gibes in the press. “I’m not apologizing.” said Jones. “The more he talks, the more irritated I get,” said Johnson. Which led to: their “mutual decision” to part.
The Jones/Johnson relationship has traveled a rocky road ever since the two were linemen for the national-champion University of Arkansas in 1964. Then, as Johnson says, “Jerry was already drivin’ a Cadillac and the rest of us were thumbin’ rides.” Came adulthood (figuratively speaking), Jones bought the Cowboys and fired legendary Tom Landry to hire Johnson. They engineered the Herschel Walker-for-the-Future trade in 1989 and made all-world running-back Emmitt Smith and defensive-cornerstone Russell Maryland Cowboys. But Jones infuriated Johnson with such antics as announcing to the press the playing status of the then injured quarterback Troy Aikman, and bringing his buddy Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia onto the sidelines. “Who’s running this team? Maybe I should take the whole staff and leave!” Johnson brayed to an assistant coach in January 1992. Throughout, the ex-teammates always and often begrudged each other credit for rebuilding the once proud franchise from a pitiful 1-15 record in 1989.
Last December Johnson announced he was “intrigued” by the possibility of working for the new expansion team in Jacksonville. Since he was finishing only the fifth year of a 10-year contract, Jones lashed back. “To have this as an issue is a joke,” he said. “[Johnson’s status] is up to me.” Barely two days after the Cowboys’ second straight Super Bowl rout, there was Johnson again dissing Jones … on David Letterman. Of the $60,000 the NFL gave the Cowboys for a victory party, he said, “I think Jerry pocketed $20,000.”
Johnson, whose buyout is reportedly $2 million, now gets to sift job possibilities ranging from analyzing NFL games for the Fox network to coaching the Miami Dolphins. “What you should understand is there were Cowboy players and coaches I’d been with for 10 to 15 years,” Johnson told NEWSWEEK in explaining his calm departure. “I didn’t see any good in being bitter or negative. I really did want to stay one more year and go for the third straight [Super Bowl]. But this is what I was going to do next year anyway, and finally we both agreed: why not get it over with?”
As Johnson sails off to the Florida keys, Switzer-a stubborn, cocky, outspoken, egotistical, swashbuckling rogue outlaw of a coach who has never led an NFL team; Jimmy Johnson before Johnson was Johnson-inherits the harsher wind. Switzer, 56, was an assistant coach at Arkansas when Jones and Johnson played. As college coaches, Switzer at Oklahoma was 5-0 against Johnson at Oklahoma State but 0-3 against Johnson at Miami. Switzer did win three national titles to Johnson’s one, but that one was Miami’s ‘88 victory over Oklahoma. Moreover, when Aikman was injured at Oklahoma and wanted to transfer, Switzer pushed him toward UCLA and away from Johnson at Miami. In his 1993 book “Turning the Thing Around,” Johnson writes of Switzer at that Oklahoma-Miami showdown in the Orange Bowl: “I detected a man who knew he was about to get his ass kicked.” In 1989, with Switzer out of a job after Oklahoma players were charged with rape, cocaine possession and shooting guns, Johnson wrote, “He’s not coming here [to Dallas].”
But now Switzer has. And it’s not as if he’s a stranger to a hot seat. Arriving as head coach at Oklahoma in 1973, Switzer guided the Sooners to 30 straight games without a loss. His gravest fault was treating college kids as grown-ups, meting out too little discipline and giving them too much responsibility. “Now I get to work with 50 professionals,” Switzer says. Bre’r Rabbit to the Briar Patch. But as Switzer’s once and future nemesis could advise him from Florida, there’s only one briar that matters: the Football Jones in the owner’s office.
