Philly Sports Jabronis
By Joe Darrah
Truth be told, the version of this year’s division is more like the NFC Least than it is the beast of the NFL that it once was. But that doesn’t mean that this coming Sunday’s showdown between the .500 Eagles and the Cowboys won’t be any less intense. Yes, the two are battling for first place, as we all know, but that’s only the half of it. Nobody likely wants to admit it, but the real intrigue behind this week’s game is that the loser gets the rights to pole position on the track leading away from the postseason. Because unless the futility of this division sees a 180, the only team getting a dance ticket this January is the one that raises the division banner. Wildcards will likely be claimed elsewhere, namely the West and the North.
So, unless these two squads meet up in Dallas under mimicking circumstances, and there is reason to believe that could happen, this game will cumulatively have the greatest impact for these two teams this season.
It’s nice to have it in Philly.
There’s no better time to replay some of the defining moments between these hated rivals. Here are my favorites, all coming post-NFC Championship of 1980, as I wasn’t quite old enough to remember living that romp in the first place. (My apologies to any of you out there who might now feel old. Now, go put your teeth in and get a defibrillator handy, it’s going to be an emotional jolt.)
1) Defense Stops Emmitt Twice on 4th and 1: 12/11/95
The 1995 season was quite tumultuous. The ushering in of the brief Ray Rhodes era also marked the beginning of the end of the decade-long Randall Cunningham era. Rhodes never tried to keep his intent to move past Cunningham as the franchise’s quarterback a secret, and Cunningham was benched twice in the first four games, losing his starting gig to Rodney Peete for good by Week 5. At the time, Ricky Waters’ “For Who? For What?” a month earlier had already felt like folk lore and the defense had allowed more than 20 points in four of its first five games, making Gang Green seem a lost memory.
But it would be the D that would provide the season’s defining moment for a wildcard-bound team at a time when the division, still in its heyday, was up for grabs. Here’s how things went:
With just more than two minutes left in a 17-17 game at Veterans Stadium, Dallas head coach Barry Switzer is electing to run a fourth-and-one play as opposed to punting. Troy Aikman hands off to Emmitt Smith from his team’s own 29. No gain. Eagles take over on downs. The wind conditions giving him a convenient excuse to run the play, and get a comb, “coach” Switzer, who has always seemed more like a cheerleader on the sidelines than a strategist, really wants to stick it to the Eagles, who to this point have erased a 17-6 halftime hole.
Stuffed … again.
But, wait, amidst the jubilation ensuing, the refs rule that the two-minute warning actually occurred prior to the fourth-and-one snap. Switzer has time to rethink. Smith, who earlier fumbled at the goal line with a chance to put the game out of reach for all intents and purposes, gets a second chance.
Let’s have Eagles’ longtime broadcaster Merrill Reese explain what happens next.
Gary Anderson drills a 42-yard field goal, his fourth of the game, four plays later, but another discrepancy occurs, this time with the game clock’s function prior to the play. Piece of cake. His fifth actual field goal is also good and the Eagles are now one game behind the Cowboys for first place.
2) Season-Ending, Playoff-Clinching Home Finale: 12/28/08
At 8-6-1, the Eagles were practically mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. But not actually. Due to the NFL’s scheduling of a divisional game in the last week of the season, the Eagles and the Cowboys “earned” the chance to meet up to play for the NFC’s final wildcard spot (with the Bears and Buccaneers losing early in the day to enable the scenario) on a seasonably warm day in Philadelphia. The Cowboys had slipped past the Birds 41-37 during a Week 2 shootout in Texas, but this game would turn lopsided in the Eagles’ favor in the second quarter when Donovan McNabb would engineer three touchdown drives, turning a 3-3 game into a 24-3 laugher that ended up in a 44-6 whitewashing.
But the true show-stealer in this one was safety Brian Dawkins, who would force fumbles on two consecutive Dallas possessions, both of which resulted in defensive scores.
The first came on Dallas’ opening drive of the second half, a drive they needed to convert on in order to keep the game realistically competitive. On first and 10 from the Cowboy 44, a Tony Romo lateral to Jason Witten, who completed a 42-yard pass to Terrell Owens, had Big D in business. But two plays later, Dawkins, who at the time was playing in what many believed was to be his last game in Eagle green, sacked Romo and forced a fumble that DE Chris Clemons took 73 yards for the back-breaking score.
This one belongs to B-Dawk, sort of.
Or so it would seem. On the ensuing possession, again with Dallas driving, Dawkins would again force a fumble, this time on bullish running back Marion Barber on the Eagle 12, that would be returned for a score (CB Joseilo Hanson, 96 yards). Here’s how Dawkins describes the play, in an interview he gave to Eagles.com soon afterward: “I remember running to [Barber] and I remember him being a physical running back. So on that play I was trying to time his stiff-arm, and I knew if he was going to try to stiff-arm me and as I got closer to him, he didn’t stiff-arm me. So I jumped, grabbed him with my right arm and tried to punch the ball with my left arm. The ball just happened to stay right in bounds and Hanson picked it up, took that thing for another [touchdown].”
3) The 104-Yard Touchdown: 11/3/96
The Eagles had lost two straight contests against the Cowboys following their thrilling win at Veterans Stadium, i.e. the fourth-and-one moment referenced above. One of those losses put an end to that very season, a 30-11 mushing in the second round of the playoffs.
On this day in 1996 however, with Ty Detmer firmly entrenched as the team’s starting quarterback, the Eagles found themselves in Texas trying to stretch a winning streak to four games and a chance to plant themselves into first place. Dallas, however, was in prime position in the games waning seconds to either attempt a game-tying field goal or going for a go ahead score. Troy Aikman looked endzone, and what transpired was so frantic that Merrill Reese didn’t even see it. We’ll defer to his hindsight account, which he shares in his book Merrill Reese: It’s Gooooood!: “When Eagles linebacker James Willis intercepted Troy Aikman’s pass in the endzone at the end of the game, I never saw it. I mean, I knew the pass was intercepted but I did not know by whom. I was completely screened. That was when I looked for my spotter, the Eagles public relations assistant Derek Boyko, who normally does a good job. I yelled ‘It’s intercepted, it’s intercepted.’ I looked over towards Derek and [producer/director] Joe McPeak had tackled Derek and now he could not get to the board to point to James Willis. I looked back to the field and by this time Troy Vincent had the ball after a lateral from Willis.” It was a lateral Reese never saw and, who knows, maybe many others also missed during their own celebrations. For those of you in said company, enjoy. (Click here, third frame down.)
4) The Haunting of the Scabs: 10/25/87
In a memory that most humans with respect for the game of football would like to forget, the early portion of the 1987 NFL season included performances by replacement players during a players’ strike and “scabs” who deferred to stay in the league and battle the Average Joes. Dallas happened to have many players who crossed that line, while the Eagles did not. In a Week 4 game, the Eagles visited Dallas and were treated unjustly according to head coach Buddy Ryan, during a 41-22 beatdown. Ryan was incensed at what he considered a deliberate running up of the score by Tom Landry.
Just two weeks later, with the league back to normalcy, the Cowboys made their voyage to the Vet. Ryan was about to pay revengeful homage.
The Eagles were playing out the string as time wound down in regulation up by 10. But when Randall Cunningham went for the ceremonial third kneel down to end the game in gentlemanly fashion after Dallas had burned through its timeouts, he had previously been given direct orders by Ryan to instead go for a face-slapping score on the last play. He followed orders, throwing deep into the endzone for Mike Quick, who was interfered with—giving the Eagles a first down and goal to go with two seconds remaining at the 1-yard line. Handoff to Keith Byars, who waltzes in.
The best part of this charade might just be the reaction of the announcers, including Joe Theismann, who basically call the plays and sideline activity in stunned acceptance. Take a look here.
Nice hat, Tom. Hit the showers.
5) The Onsides-Kicking Pickle Juice Caper: 9/3/2000
Ah yes, the onside kick heard ‘round the world.
It’s tough to imagine a football game beginning better than this. Second-year head coach Andy Reid was ready to begin the Eagles’ hostile takeover of the NFC East, beginning with the season opener to the 2000 season in Dallas.
When Reid elected to attempt an onside kick during the opening kickoff, one’s own hair-pulling quickly morphed to relief and ultimately downright giddiness as the Eagles recovered. When Donovan McNabb floated a short touchdown pass to TE Jeff Thomason to cap the drive, the route was on—Philly would score the game’s first 24 points en route to a 41-14 rout, one of 11 losses on the season for Dallas.
The game was also monumental in that Duce Staley compiled 201 rushing yards and mythical in the sense that Reid’s players were reportedly physically primed for the whooping by drinking pickle juice (wait a few minutes on this clip if you want to see the kick, too) due to the high temperatures, but the onside kick was a defining moment not just for the game and the season, but Reid’s once polished legacy in the city.
Oh, and then there’s the whole knocking Troy Aikman out of the game thing. About the only thing nauseating from a Philly standpoint is that Randall Cunningham served as the Cowboys’ backup at the time. Gross.
