For a team that won it all, three decades is a long time to spend without any silverware. The Dallas Cowboys went from an NFL dynasty to a team that can’t make it to the playoffs. But behind the sting of every failed season in the last 30 years is a deeper wound for the team’s owner. 

The cracks that had begun to show after their second Super Bowl win had rippled into a public dispute: Jimmy Johnson against Jerry Jones. And even thirty years later, that bitter split hasn’t healed. And it’s the reason why legendary broadcaster Norm Hitzges believes Jones’ hunger for another Lombardi is his way of escaping Johnson’s shadow. 

On his show Just Wondering, Hitzges spoke about the Dallas defense rebuild that we’re seeing this year. Jones made a promise in the off-season. He would turn the bottom-ranked defense into a respectable unit. And he did so in a way, with the addition of Christian Parker and the likes of Von Miller. But all of that is just a way of showing Jimmy Johnson that he could built a team that could win. 

“The final reason Jerry Jones might be willing to give up the future for the present: his age,” Hitzges said. “Jerry will be 84 years old in 7 weeks. He, like others of us, you might call elderly, realized there’s a clock ticking. He won a Super Bowl last after the 95 season; he was 54 years old. He won it with Barry Switzer, but it was with the remnants of the team, the Juggernaut, assembled and coached by Jimmy Johnson.”

When Jones had brought Johnson as the head coach, he had fired Tom Landry. The two had decided that Jones would take care of the business and Johnson the football. And for a while, it worked. They won two Super Bowls after going 1-15 in their first season together. 

But the cracks had started to appear. Johnson felt that Jerry was too involved in the football side of things. On the other side, Jones wasn’t happy about Johnson quipping to the media. It all came to a head at an NFL owners’ meeting where Jerry raised a toast to their second Super Bowl win. Everyone raised their glasses. Everyone except Johnson. 

That was the final straw. “Don’t leave now,” Jones said, per reporter Ed Werder. “You’ll miss the story of the year. I’m going to fire that m–f– Jimmy Johnson, that disloyal son of a b—–.”

Jones had infamously claimed 500 coaches could win with the squad they had. And as if to prove it, he brought Barry Switzer as the head coach right after they won their second Lombardi. 

The players weren’t happy. Emmitt Smith famously claimed if the team fired Jimmy, they fired him. And he wasn’t alone. A big group in the locker room had grown used to a dynamic with Johnson, one that brought out the best from the players. 

As Troy Aikman had put it, “[Jerry] knows why we won with Jimmy Johnson, and I believe the reason we won is because every player in that locker room felt, and I think knew, that Jimmy was calling the shots, that Jimmy was in control of their destiny, so if you didn’t do what you were supposed to do by Jimmy’s standards, you were held accountable.”

But while they won another Super Bowl, the following seasons weren’t any kind. They never went back to another championship game, and their playoff appearances? None of them saw the Cowboys succeed in the Divisional round. 

The failures kept piling on. A decade turned into two, then into three. And in the meantime, Johnson kept claiming that he had the final say in the matters of football, taking credit for the success. He does so to this day, even posting pictures of his contract. That’s why it has become incredibly important for Jones to show that he could turn the team’s fortune around, after three decades of not reaching the Championship game. 

“I think that really peeves Jerry that people blame him for all the failures since then. But they think of all the successes back then as Jimmy’s and not Jerry’s. What’s happened since that 95 Super Bowl? They haven’t even made it to an NFC Championship game in 30 years. In those three decades, a total of five playoff wins. Five! The fans blame Jerry for that. I believe Jerry is hearing his personal clock ticking and he desperately wants to win a Super Bowl ring. A ring that people will think of as Jerry’s and Jerry’s alone.”

The questions about who was the architect of those dynasty years remained under debate all of these years. Jimmy said he made all the calls regarding player trades and acquisitions, and Jerry believed it was him all along.

He knows giving Johnson the boot wasn’t the right thing to do. He even admitted so. “I look back, I should have hung my hat on the fact that I knew that Jimmy Johnson wasn’t perfect,” Jones said. “He knew that I was one of the most imperfect people that he had ever been around. And then when we are on top of the world, and just won the gold cup, and I’m liable to break the d— thing.”

But as he looks back at the very thing he broke, he tries to rejoin the pieces every single year. This time,  Jerry has a championship-caliber offense, a new and hungry defense that’s shown all the makings of greatness throughout the offseason. This is, without a doubt, Jerry’s team now.