Stephen A. Smith was one of the people who wanted Michael Irvin beside him when First Take reshaped its lineup in 2021. The two had known each other for years, dating back to their days together on Fox’s The Best Damn Sports Show Period, and when ESPN made Irvin a regular Monday presence. The cameras simply gave them two hours a week to do what they had apparently been doing for years anyway: argue sports. The storyline, inevitably, had to involve the Dallas Cowboys

Their Cowboys dynamic is a little ironic. Smith has made a career out of antagonizing Dallas and its fanbase, yet one of the people closest to him is one of the franchise’s loudest defenders. Smith has even drawn that distinction himself, calling Irvin a “dear friend of mine” while making it clear his Cowboys ire is aimed elsewhere. So when Irvin backs his old team and Smith pushes back, it is two friends falling into their oldest argument. That happened again this week.

“They going to be doing it in LA. Everybody think the Rams are going to be doing it. So you ask me, man, I’m doing fine,” Irvin said on Stephen A. Smith’s podcast. “I would like to remind you that’s exactly what you said to me, to my face, when I was in Miami on the sideline with you before the national championship game against Indiana,” Smith pushed back Irvin’s prediction and Irvin had a reply ready to that, too. In fact, that is where things got heated.

“Those were your words to me. You didn’t even have the decency to find new words to give me, to validate your declarations. This is unbelievable. You’re actually saying the same thing to me that you said the night Miami lost the national championship game to Indiana.”

Irvin’s prediction was not exactly a vague “the Cowboys will be good” take, either. With Super Bowl LXI headed to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on February 14, 2027, his “doing it in LA” line was a direct prediction that Dallas would be the team playing for the Lombardi Trophy there, ahead of a Rams team that is itself expected to be among the NFC’s contenders. The Rams have only strengthened that case, with Aaron Donald’s return from retirement recently sending their Super Bowl odds surging. That is what made Smith’s response more pointed than a routine Cowboys jab.

He was not simply dismissing Irvin’s belief in Dallas; he was holding him to his own recent track record. Irvin had backed Miami before its 27-21 loss to Indiana in the College Football Playoff National Championship, and now Smith was hearing another confident prediction from the same man. To Smith, the problem was not that Irvin was optimistic. It was that he sounded familiar.

Their Cowboys arguments have produced some of the most theatrical moments of their television relationship. In November 2018, Irvin was so worked up defending Dallas on First Take that he was sweating through the segment and needed a production assistant to keep handing him towels. He declared that the Cowboys were seeing “the dawn of a new day” after the Amari Cooper trade, while Smith countered with the far less flattering reminder that Dallas had won only two playoff games in the previous 25 years. Irvin never backed off.

He pointed to Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott and Cooper as the foundation of a new Cowboys era, while Smith kept dragging the conversation back to what Dallas had actually accomplished. The volume has not always been the point, either.

In 2019, Irvin stood up during a debate with Smith over Ezekiel Elliott’s contract situation and complained that Smith was interrupting him too much. And in November 2025, ESPN’s own clip captured another Cowboys argument reaching the point where both men got out of their chairs. The pattern is remarkably consistent: Irvin argues from belief in the team; Smith argues from the evidence that has failed to justify that belief. Yet calling Irvin a man who simply “takes the bait” misses why these exchanges work.

Irvin has said the debates continue even when the cameras are off. The two have described each other as close friends, and Irvin has acknowledged that they can slip into “heavy debates” in their personal conversations, too. Smith has been even more explicit about the relationship, once saying, “There’s not much on this planet earth I would not do for Michael Irvin. That’s my brother.”

Smith’s Cowboys fixation, meanwhile, is more complicated than simply disliking the franchise. He has said that Jerry Jones and Stephen Jones have been “very, very nice” to him and that Irvin, Emmitt Smith, Troy Aikman and Deion Sanders are people he respects. “It has nothing to do with the Cowboys. It has everything to do with their fans,” Smith told Esquire, explaining that what gets under his skin is the way Cowboys expectations reset almost immediately after another disappointing season. Smith has made the same distinction more recently.

In 2025, he told The Dallas Morning News that he grew up a Cowboys hater but that his trolling is “all in fun,” adding that he still respects Dallas fans and enjoys meeting them. He also refused to reduce Jerry Jones to someone who does not care about winning, saying, “Jerry cares about winning,” while arguing that Jones is also deeply invested in the business side of the franchise. That leaves Smith plenty of room to respect the man, like the players and still hammer the team. And Smith’s skepticism has had plenty to work with.

Dallas went 7-9-1 in 2025, scored 471 points but allowed 511, the most in the NFL, and was officially eliminated from playoff contention before the regular season was even over. The offense ranked seventh in scoring, while the defense ranked 32nd in points allowed. So when Smith asks Irvin to wait for proof, he is not inventing a weakness for the sake of television. Dallas had a glaring one.

That is also why Irvin’s side of this argument deserves more than a punchline. Dallas spent the offseason attacking precisely that problem. The Cowboys traded for Rashan Gary, signed Jalen Thompson and P.J. Locke, added Cobie Durant, and then continued reshaping the defense through the draft. The team’s own depth chart now has Gary alongside Quinnen Williams and Kenny Clark up front, Thompson and Caleb Downs at safety, and Durant competing in a deeper cornerback group.

Gary, in particular, gives Irvin something tangible to point to. Dallas sent Green Bay a 2027 fourth-round pick for the edge rusher, adding a player with a Pro Bowl season on his résumé to a defense that desperately needed more disruption. Thompson’s arrival added another veteran piece to the back end, while Durant brought in a corner who had just been part of the Rams’ roster, making Irvin’s decision to invoke Los Angeles even more interesting.

The Cowboys also enter 2026 with Dak Prescott still at quarterback, CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens on the outside, and Jake Ferguson at tight end. Sam Howell is now the backup after Dallas waived Joe Milton, giving the team a more settled quarterback room heading into the season. None of that guarantees a Super Bowl run, but it explains why Irvin can look at this roster and see a team capable of making a jump rather than simply repeating 2025.

That leaves the two friends arguing over two different standards. Irvin is looking at what Dallas has changed. Smith is looking at what Dallas has yet to prove. One sees a defense that was rebuilt around a glaring weakness; the other sees another Cowboys offseason that still has to survive January.