The Underrated Greatness Of Emmitt Smith - Part 4
In Part 4 of this series I'll be covering 2001, the year when things really started turning bad for Emmitt, and what I believe to be the beginning of the end for him as a Cowboy. The biggest issue for the Cowboys that year was the continued decline of the team, which lead to them being more interested in evaluating players than winning games. As a result of that approach, a running back controversy was started.
Emmitt Smith/Troy Hambrick Controversy
Troy Hambrick was a practice squad player, and was discovered when the Cowboys were in the middle of consecutive 5-11 seasons. He got a lot of attention very quickly, as well as a lot of praise and a lot of people telling him he was ready. You can't fault him for wanting to play, but he was immature and classless in the way he handled it.
Here are some quotes from Troy Hambrick as evidence:
"If I've accomplished the things Emmitt has accomplished, I would have retired. What else are you playing for? I understand he wanted the record and he didn't feel like his career was over, but 3 Super Bowl rings and all of the things he's done. You know, this is like Michael Jordan still in the league tarnishing his name and he can't make an easy dunk."
"Emmitt doesn't have to prove anything anymore. I just think it's time to let a new generation come along. Everything ends at some point. I'm not trying to be disrespectful towards anyone. But I just feel it's my time to come in and show what I can do." (after he was called on the previous quote)
"This is my time. We've been waiting on Emmitt to retire or make his move. Of course, I see it as a breakout year. Every time I touch the ball, it's a breakout carry." (after he was promoted to starter)
This controversy seemed like Tony Dorsett/Herschel Walker in 1986 all over again. It looked to me liked everybody was trying to run Emmitt Smith out of Dallas the same way they did Tony Dorsett. That whole situation with Emmitt reminded me of when the Cowboys signed Herschel Walker from the USFL and eventually put him in the starting lineup ahead of Tony Dorsett. TD was highly upset about it, and eventually came to resent Herschel. Tom Landry's initial plan was to have a "Heisman Backfield" with TD and Herschel in the same backfield. After that backfired, they moved towards having Herschel start full time. TD was upset because he felt like he was being slighted and he didn't want to be a backup running back. He felt like he hadn't lost a step, or at least lost enough to be demoted to 2nd string. Even several of his teammates said they didn't see a drop off in talent. After the 1987 season, the Cowboys traded Tony Dorsett to the Broncos for a conditional 5th round draft choice. There were a lot of hurt people in Dallas after TD left, and I was really hoping that Emmitt wouldn't leave the same way.
The situation with Emmitt in 2001 was slightly different because the offense had reached a new low and was breaking futility records, but the running back situation was basically the same as it was in 1986. Emmitt was in his 12th season, and on the verge of breaking the most sacred record in the NFL, and the Cowboys had a young running back in Troy Hambrick who could take over for Emmitt in the near future. The biggest difference between the 2 controversies is that T-Ham was forced into the starting fullback spot when Robert Thomas was lost for the season.
Here is an excerpt from a piece I wrote about the situation back then:
It seems like the Cowboys are trying to speed up the future, but they would be foolish to let Emmitt get away. With the way the team is playing right now and the way things are going, people want to say Emmitt is too old and too beat up to still be in the NFL, they say he should forget about the record and retire at the end of this season before he embarrasses himself or he has to be carried off the field. It's easy to criticize players and talk bad about them in situations like this. If Emmitt was leading the NFL in rushing and the Cowboys were winning games, the bandwagon would be overcrowded.
Everybody now is quick to say Troy Hambrick is better and more productive than Emmitt. T-Ham might have 16 fewer yards than Emmitt on fewer carries, and they do run behind the same offensive line, but T-Ham and Emmitt don't face the same defenses. When Emmitt is in the game, he is a bulls-eye. teams stack the line and run blitz A LOT more often than they do when T-Ham is in the game. When T-Ham is in the game, Jack Reilliy calls way more running plays between the tackles than he does for Emmitt. When Emmitt is in the game, Reilly will try to send him outside on a pitch or some kind of sweep. Sometimes he'll run him out of the single back formation. When T-Ham and Emmitt are both in the game with T-Ham at fullback, defenses will overload to stop Emmitt, and T-Ham will take a quick handoff from the QB with the defense thinking Emmitt is getting the ball. Emmitt is getting the short end of things. It wouldn't be ridiculous at all to say that Emmitt has been misused the past few years, even a couple of years before Reilly came back to Dallas. It would be interesting to see what Emmitt would do if he ever got a passing game to take pressure off of him. He would have better stats, and more importantly, the Cowboys would have more wins.
I agree with everything Emmitt is saying about the Cowboys putting more emphasis on evaluating players than winning games. That's what training camp and preseason are for. When you lock and load for the season, you have to commit. The object of the game is to have your best 11 players on the field at all times. It was wrong of Dave Campo to tell Emmitt to retire if he didn't like it. To me, that was a slap in Emmitt's face, after all he had done for the Cowboys. They are both at different points in their careers, and that can put a strain on any relationship. I just hope everything gets fixed soon, and like I said earlier, I pray that Emmitt won't leave the Cowboys the same way Tony Dorsett did, and that he can finish his career as a Cowboy.
One thing I forgot to mention when I wrote that, is that teams also rotated their defensive personnel. T-Ham was lucky enough that lesser quality backups were rotated onto the field when he was in the game, making it easier for him to run. Also, it's possible that Emmitt and the offensive line wore down the first string defense, and T-Ham benefited from it. Teams also put an extra man in the box for Emmitt, but not for T-Ham. In so many words, Troy Hambrick got impatient with his backup role and said so out loud. He said at training camp in 2002 that he was the best running back on the team, and that it was time for Emmitt to move on after he broke the record. T-Ham got exactly what he wanted in 2003, and he had to be humbled. He quickly found out that it wasn't as easy as he thought it was. He admitted it when he said, "They didn't tell me once teams start game-planning against you that all those big runs stop." T-Ham also said that he thought he was "the next thing to O.J. Simpson. He ran for 972 yards and a 3.5 yards per carry average.
This story ends with an ironic twist. Emmitt Smith ended up signing with the Cardinals after he left the Cowboys, and Troy Hambrick ended up being his backup again. The Cowboys released T-Ham in 2004 after they drafted Julius Jones. He was picked up by the Raiders, and ended up gaining weight. The Cardinals traded for T-Ham, who was out of shape, after Marcel Shipp blew out his knee in training camp. He was supposed to give them the "power back" they lost when Shipp went down.
2001 - Running Into A Brick Wall
The 2001 season was a real struggle for the Cowboys as a team, but Emmitt Smith was the one who was feeling it the most because the running game was running into a brick wall. When it wasn't running into the wall, it was going backwards. Plain and simple: Emmitt had NOWHERE to run. He had to fight, bite, and claw for every yard that year. To put in perspective how tough that season was for Emmitt, I want to point out that the Cowboys started out 0-4, and Emmitt went into halftime with 2 or fewer yards in 3 of those losses.
Here are some of the elements from a long list of things Emmitt had working against him:
1.) Good Defenses
2.) Terrible Blocking
3.) Linemen Pulling Off Of Blocks Early
4.) Tentative Running (a result of all of the above)
5.) Offensive Scheme
6.) The Worst Passing Attack In The NFL
7.) No True Fullback
8.) Right Guard Struggling Badly (revolving door at the position)
9.) Joey Galloway and Rocket Ismail were injured again and missed significant time.
10.) Defenses were stacking the line and daring the quarterback to beat them.
11.) The offense went through 4 quarterbacks that season.
12.) Defenses used run blitzes and stunts to plug up the middle and force Emmitt to the outside.
13.) There seemed to be more emphasis on evaluating players that season than winning games.
Emmitt was stuck carrying the load as the star player on a team full of lesser players. He was still too good to retire, but with the team being so bad, he was no longer seen as a hero. With the offense as inconsistent as it was for most of the season, and with Emmitt being the oldest player on offense, everybody had a tendency to blame him for their struggles. When you have an offense with 4 different quarterbacks - a rookie, 2 undrafted free agents, and a failed #2 overall pick and and an offensive line that can't open holes, you have much bigger problems than your running back. It also didn't help that late in his career Emmitt played with a bunch of young players that were lazy and didn't have a good work ethic or a passion for football. When losses start to pile up, a player that was a major contributor to the team during the times where a win was much appreciated, no longer has a function.
It required a lot of endurance from Emmitt and Cowboys fans to see him break the NFL's all-time rushing record with that broken team. There were too many people that lived for the moment that wanted to run him out of Dallas. I personally saw a running back who was still capable of playing at an All-Pro level, even if he was stepping out of bounds a yard or two earlier and fighting less when he was being gang tackled. Even with all of that, Emmitt was still picking up yards with a line that was showing weakness in running situations. He was still productive running the ball with his quarterback constantly on his back after pass attempts.....AFTER a successful running down by Emmitt. Bottom line, he was still capable of Emmitt-like production if the rest of the offense was consistent.
As the last Triplet, Emmitt became the locker room spokesman and the player every team designed their defense to stop. Defenses had been selling out to stop Emmitt for years, but this time was different because the Cowboys didn't have a passing game. At this point, Emmitt wasn't a good fit on a bad Cowboys team. He could still run between the tackles with the quick, darting moves that he was famous for, but because he wasn't able to break the long runs the way he used to, defenses started cheating against the run because they didn't fear Emmitt taking it all the way. He would have been a better fit with a good line, where the long runs would have been frequent again. With a better line, the team could pound him for 3 quarters, wear down the defense, and allow him to put up big numbers in the 4th quarter. In Dallas, Emmitt's skills were being wasted.
Not having a passing game hurt the running game overall, and not having a dependable tight end hurt the runs inside. Without a threat at TE, linebackers could run blitz the Cowboys all day long, a lot of times hitting Emmitt in the backfield. The revolving door of inexperienced players at right guard meant that they could never develop any kind of consistency at that position. That hurt the offense because most of those blitzes came from between the right guard and center. With a decent threat at TE, at least one LB would be forced to cover him, instead of a defensive end (usually in a run blitz the DE pulls off to cover the TE). With a true threat like Jay Novacek was, it would require a linebacker AND a strong safety to cover him short and deep. That's a big part of why Emmitt was so successful when he was there. It took 2 players to cover Jay Novacek. Even though there might have been 8 or 9 in the box, by the time the play developed, 2 of them were off covering #84. The "lead draw" was the main play for the Cowboys' offense because it gave the defense time to react to the TE going out before the running play actually hit them. One or two seconds was all that was needed of the OLB and SS to start backpedaling to cover Jay Novacek, then Daryl Johnston came barreling through with Emmitt right behind him. The defense didn't have enough man power up front to account for all the blockers, so Emmitt would burst through for good yardage.
Even though his production was down by Emmitt standards in 2001, he still had a solid season by NFL standards. His 1,021 yards ranked 15th in the NFL and 7th in the NFC. Those numbers alone were enough to prove that at least half the teams in the league still would have coveted Emmitt's production. Everybody expected his 1,000-yard streak to end after he only had 9 yards on Thanksgiving Day against the Broncos, leaving him with 487 yards after 10 games. It seemed like the deck was stacked against Emmitt, considering that he needed to average 85.5 yards over the last 6 games, and at that point he had only gained more than that once all season. Then Emmitt had a stretch drive where he went over 100 yards in 3 of the last 6 games to reach 1,000 yards. He had 18 carries for 77 yards in the season finale vs the Lions to put him over 1,000 yards for the 11th straight season, breaking the NFL record set by Barry Sanders. The irony with this record, was that either way Emmitt would have passed Barry in some category to reach a milestone. The game up in Detroit got moved from Week 2 (because of 9/11) to the end of the season. If the game had been played in Week 2 as planned, Emmitt would have passed Barry for 2nd place on the NFL's all-time rushing list. Instead, he ended up breaking Barry's record for consecutive 1,000-yard seasons.
That season was all the more impressive when you think about the fact that Emmitt ran for 1,021 yards despite missing 2 games, being misused in the offense, having the NFL's worst pass offense, and playing on an offensive unit that went through 4 quarterbacks (5 if you count Tony Banks in the preseason). He also didn't have a lead blocker. After Robert Thomas went down for the season, the Cowboys moved Troy Hambrick to fullback. They even used a TE on occasion (Johnny Huggins), and sometimes they used a DT on the goal line as the lead blocker. All of those things made those 100-yard games hard to come by for Emmitt that season.......he only had 4 of them. It's hard enough for a running back to get 100 yards even without all of those elements working against him. Think about it: You have to average 25 yards a quarter, you don't always have the ball, you have 15 minutes, and you go against 8 and 9-man fronts often. It's 10 times harder when you have a QB that doesn't have the respect of opposing defenses.
At that stage in Emmitt's career, people failed to realize that his value came in 2-fold form - production and intangibles. The most important trait that he had that so few in the NFL did, was that he knew how to win. He knew exactly what it took to be a champion. The Cowboys had a roster full of young players who needed to learn that skill from him. If you need proof, just look at the 2 games that Emmitt missed with a sprained knee, against the Giants and Falcons, both away games. The Cowboys should have won both games, but didn't. The running game production wasn't the problem. Troy Hambrick ran for a respectable 77 yards against the Giants and a season high 127 yards against the Falcons, but the Cowboys gave both of those games away. What the team was missing was leadership in the huddle and a guy that could convert a crucial first down late in the game.
Emmitt, after 12 years in the NFL, was still the best running back in the league in close games when the game was on the line. He got stronger as the game went on, and always ran harder when something was on the line. Emmitt was a 2nd half player that wore teams down and them humiliated them late for game winning points. A good example of that would be the Oct. 15 Monday night game against the Redskins, where Emmitt carried the Cowboys to a 9-7 win. He had 25 carries for 107 yards for the game, and had 54 more yards called back because of penalties. He had a 13-yard run on the last play of the game to set up the game winning field goal. I was glad to see Emmitt have a game like that because a few days earlier Eric Dickerson, who was a sideline commentator for MNF at that time, made the statement "Father Time has caught up with Emmitt Smith." For more proof that Emmitt was still clutch, check out these rankings:
-1st in the NFL in total rushing yards in close games (200 yards)
-3rd in the NFL in yards per carry in the 4th quarter (5.3 YPC)
-6th in the NFL in yards per carry for carry 21 and up (4.3 YPC)
I also want to point out that the Cowboys passed for 2,218 yards in 2001, which was dead last in the NFL. It was also the team's 16-game single season franchise low. There were 28 quarterbacks all by themselves that threw for more yards. Emmitt by himself ran for more yards than any QB threw for individually. The Cowboys were ranked 3rd in the NFL in rushing offense behind the Steelers and 49ers, averaging 138.5 yards per game. The rushing and passing offense combined to give the Cowboys a 29th overall ranking in total offense. It would have been nice to see what Emmitt could do with a real passing attack and the defense not crowding the line of scrimmage looking for him with no regard for the forward pass. With all of the mess the Cowboys had going on that year, it would have been unbelievable for them to finish the 2001 season with an 8-8 record. They ended up being 5-11 for the 2nd straight year.
I'll pick up Part 5 with 2002, the year that Emmitt broke the record, and in my opinion his toughest season as a Cowboy.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Sunday, October 6, 2013
The Underrated Greatness Of Emmitt Smith - Part 3
The Underrated Greatness Of Emmitt Smith - Part 3
For Part 3 of this series, I'll be going over 1998-2000, Emmitt's comeback years after having 2 straight seasons well below Emmitt standards.
With greatness comes backlash, and every great player in every sport has his share of critics and naysayers. I believe that Emmitt Smith has it worse than most. It seems to me like the majority of football fans and media thought Emmitt had it easy and that he wasn't all that great of a running back. The most common misconception is "Put him on any other team besides the Cowboys, and he would have been good, but not great." In the 3-year span from 1998-2000, the Cowboys, coached by Chan Gailey and Dave Campo, were one game under .500 and won ZERO playoff games. As much as I love Troy Aikman, he was done by then. All of those concussions had finally taken a toll on him. Michael Irvin also had to retire prematurely, after a spinal injury ended his 1999 season in the 4th game. Some of the famous names were still on the offensive line, but their best years were behind them at that point. During those seasons, Emmitt's age was 29, 30, and 31. He had taken a ridiculous amount of punishment in his first 28 years, at all levels of football. Usually in that situation, you would have a running back who is just above average struggling.
Emmitt rushed for 3,932 yards and 33 touchdowns during those 3 years, and he wasn't running on fumes either. He was at 4.2 yards per carry in 1998 and 1999, and at 4.1 in 2000. He was in the top 5 in the NFL in rushing yards in 2 of those 3 years. We don't even have to speculate on what Emmitt would do if he played for a mediocre to bad team. He did play for those kinds of teams from 1998-2000, and ran for the 3rd most yards from 29-31 in NFL history behind Walter Payton and Curtis Martin. Once again, most good-but-not-great running backs struggle to keep a job at age 30. Emmitt Smith was a top 5 rusher on a bad team. It would be easy to say that I picked out that particular 3-year stretch to make Emmitt look good, but the fact is, you can pick ANY 3-year strectch out of his career and he would be among the leading rushers in NFL history in that age group. Let's not forget that Emmitt has the NFL record for most rushing yards after turning 30. My point is that his supporting cast wasn't great in all of those stretches and was downright bad in others. I said in Part 2 that Emmitt's decline had much more to do with the team's incompetence than his declining skills.
Let's look at what Emmitt had going on in these 3 seasons:
1998
Emmitt had to make the following adjustments:
1.) Learning How To Run Without A Fullback
A lot of people tend to forget about this adjustment. In Emmitt's first 8 years, he spent about 60% of the time behind a fullback, and under Chan Gailey that number got cut in half. The adjustment also meant that Emmitt wasn't hitting the hole as fast. He had to wait another split-second to see how the play developed or see if the player in front of him was able to make the block.
2.) A New Zone Blocking Scheme
This scheme is based on the running back's ability to recognize where the hole is and make a cut to get up the field. This blocking scheme stretches the defense by moving the line, forcing the defensive linemen to move sideways, making them easier to block. The defenders also get tied up because they have to react, and that's where the running back can take advantage of the stretch. Zone blocking is not about blowing your man off the line, it's about staying in contact with him and letting the running back make the adjustment. This scheme was an adjustment for the whole offense, especially since the offensive line was better at man blocking than zone.
3.) Giving Up 3rd Down Responsibilities
The Cowboys signed Chris Warren to be their 3rd down back, as well as giving Emmitt an occasional breather to help lighten his load.
After back to back sub-par seasons full of injuries and having bone spurs removed from one of his ankles, Emmitt was healthy for the first time in 3 seasons. Under new head coach Chan Gailey, he bounced back in 1998 with 1,332 yards and 13 touchdowns, and also became the Cowboys' all-time leading rusher that season. Defenses were still keying on Emmitt because the Cowboys still didn't have a threat at TE, and the Cowboys were without Troy Aikman for 5 games after he broke his collarbone in Week 2. Jason Garrett didn't do a bad job stepping in for those 5 games, but Emmitt played a major role in keeping the team afloat during that stretch, with 90 carries for 390 yards and 3 touchdowns. Making those adjustments after doing things the same way for so long wasn't easy for Emmitt to do, which makes his 1998 season that much more impressive.
1999
Emmitt had an even better season in 1999 despite:
1.) Being the only reliable cog in an inconsistent offense.
2.) Running behind a converted linebacker at fullback.
3.) The Cowboys had 3 of their top 4 receivers out with injury.
4.) Troy Aikman was in and out of the lineup with concussions.
5.) Even more 8 and 9-man fronts.
6.) Missing 9 quarters of football because of hand and groin injuries.
This would be the year that Emmitt proved that he still had it. He was once again on his usual record-setting pace, even leading the NFL in rushing at one point- AT 30 YEARS OLD and supposedly washed up. He and Ricky Watters were the only two 30-year old running backs to rank among the top 10 in rushing in 1999. Emmitt also moved up a couple of spots on the NFL's all-time rushing list, passing Tony Dorsett and Eric Dickerson, moving into 3rd place all-time.
Who can forget that Monday Night game in Minnesota right after Walter Payton's death? Emmitt came out in his memory and had 13 carries for 140 yards and 2 touchdowns in less than a half, more like a quarter and a half. The Cowboys were completely dominating the Vikings, and then it all changed:
In what might be the most unfortunate moment in Emmitt's career, when he started getting close to the end zone on his 63-yard touchdown run, he stiff-armed Vikings cornerback Kenny Wright and got his fingers tangled in his face mask, breaking bones in the back of his hand. He also had a 24-yard touchdown run on his very next carry, after the Cowboys recovered a Vikings fumble of a kickoff, giving him the NFL record for fastest back to back touchdowns scored by one player.....18 seconds. By halftime, on a record-setting pace, Emmitt was done for the game, and even sat the next one out. The Cowboys' offense left when Emmitt did, and they started to fall apart after that. To cap it all off, Troy Aikman suffered a concussion early in the 3rd quarter that knocked him out of the game. I had A SICK FEELING in my body after hearing that Emmitt was done for the game. I really wanted to see him go after Walter Payton's then-NFL single game rushing record. I remember him saying that he was in a serious groove that night, and wasn't even tired yet.
Emmitt still ended up with 1,397 yards and 11 touchdowns, along with a healthy 4.2 yards per carry average. It was a very good season, but it was robbed by a broken hand of all it could have been. With the pace Emmitt was on before he got injured, there is no telling how many yards he would have ended up with. At the very least, I would say his total would have been in the 1,600-1,700 range, and at least 15 touchdowns. At the risk of sounding biased, if Emmitt would have kept up that pace and won the rushing title, he would have been my choice for MVP. Kurt Warner was the 1999 MVP, and there is no question that he deserved it. He took over the starting QB job after Trent Green blew out his knee in a preseason game, and led the Rams to a 13-3 record and Super Bowl win after going 4-12 in 1998.
Emmitt carried the Cowboys on his back in 1999, and he put those numbers and dragged the Cowboys to the playoffs with a beat-up Troy Aikman, Robert Thomas (a converted linebacker) at fullback, Rocket Ismail and Ernie Mills as the starting receivers, and David LaFleur at tight end as his supporting cast. You would think that losing Daryl Johnston to a career-ending neck injury in Week 1 and Michael Irvin to a career-ending spinal injury in Week 4 would have slowed Emmitt down, but he got stronger as the season went on, and the only thing that could stop him were the injuries. That's why I believe he would have won the MVP if he stayed healthy. More than anything, the 1999 season also proved that if Emmitt's talent and production didn't get slowed drastically after the 1995 season, he would have smashed the all-time rushing record much earlier than he actually did, and went over 20,000 yards, which was his goal.
2000
Durring Emmitt's last 3 years with the Cowboys, the Dave Campo era, he was surrounded by amazingly little talent (particularly on offense). The Cowboys finished 5-11 in every one of those seasons. By then, Emmitt was all the Cowboys had going for them, and he had even more obstacles to overcome.
Here is what Emmitt was up against in 2000:
1.) Joey Galloway and Rocket Ismail both out with a torn ACL.
2.) Troy Aikman in and out with concussions.
3.) Underachieving offensive line.
4.) Shuffling of the offensive line because of injuries.
5.) Defensive problems.
6.) Lack of time of possession (not having the football enough to establish a running game).
7.) Playing from behind.
8.) Coaches not utilizing everything.
9.) No commitment to be good at one thing.
Emmitt really had the deck stacked against him in 2000, but what makes it all worse, is that they would even go away from him sometimes when the running game was working. Here is a prime example:
The Cowboys gave away the November 5 game against the Eagles, losing 16-13 in overtime. I personally hold Jack Reilly (offensive coordinator) responsible for the Cowboys losing that game. Robert Thomas might have been the goat in that game, but he should have never been put in that situation in the first place. Why would a coach IN THE MIDDLE OF OVERTIME put the football in the hands of a 3rd year blocking fullback when you had an 11-year veteran halfback that's headed to the Hall Of Fame at your disposal?
Why would a coach decide in as hostile an environment as there is to give the ball to a man that hadn't carried it all day when the other guy had carried it 26 times for 134 yards? Why would a coach take that chance with a player that came into the league as a backup linebacker when the other choice was one of the top running backs in the history of the game at EVERY LEVEL he played?
To justify his decision, Jack Reilly said, "We needed a little bit of mixture in there." It didn't look that way from my TV. To me, it looked like all they had to do was give the ball to Emmitt. Michael Irvin was retired, Troy Aikman was on his way out, but Emmitt still worked about as well as he ever did. With the way he was running, how could he have 84 yards at halftime, 121 through 3 quarters, and only have 134 by the time the game was over? With that game going to OT, Emmitt probably should have had about 175 yards.
When the Cowboys got the ball for the first time in the 4th quarter, they had a 10-3 lead, and then the coaching staff all of a sudden decided to try something else. As a result, they ended up having their first possession of the game that ended without a 1st down, and then they had to punt. As a matter of fact, the Cowboys only ran the ball twice in their first 3 possessions of the 4th quarter. They stopped dominating time of possession and eating up clock to give their defense some rest, and that's what did them in. The next thing you know, the Eagles tied the game TWICE after struggling the whole game.......first with a touchdown at 10, then with a field goal at 13.
That day wasn't the first time Dave Campo and his coaching staff had abandoned Emmitt Smith, their only weapon, and one that rarely failed them. The offensive burden fell on Emmitt because Troy Aikman was in and out of the lineup with repeated concussions, and Joey Galloway and Rocket Ismail were both out for the year with knee injuries. On that particular day, with Randall Cunningham filling in for Troy and the team being short-handed at receiver, you would think it would have been all Emmitt all the time, with a little bit of Chris Warren mixed in.
In the December 10 game against the Redskins, Emmitt carried the Cowboys to a 32-13 win by running for a season-high 150 yards......against the NFL's No. 2 ranked defense. That was also the game that Troy Aikman suffered the concussion that ended his career, on a hit by Lavar Arrington in the 1st quarter. It speaks volumes about his character for him to go out and play like that when his QB was out, other key contributors injured, and the Cowboys being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. The offensive line struggled to open holes for him in the first half, limiting him to just 39 yards on 12 carries, and then Emmitt just took over the game in the 2nd half. Emmitt also went over 1,000 yards in that game, for the 10th straight season, and it would have been 11 if David Shula would have seen fit to give him more carries in his rookie season. Emmitt only got more than 20 carries once in the first 10 games of that season.
I think Emmitt did well to put up 1,203 yards and 9 touchdowns, considering everything he had going against him. I believe he could have gotten 1,400-1,500 if they gave him the ball more often. Better yet, I wonder what the Cowboys' record would have been. Emmitt played on good teams early in his career and bad teams late. Walter Payton did the opposite. Jim Brown only played on good teams. During his career, Emmitt Smith's teams were a total of 12 games over .500, Walter Payton's were 28 games over .500, and Jim Brown's were 45 games over .500. With that being said, can somebody tell me again why Emmitt gets accused of gravy-training?
I'll pick up Part 4 with 2001, when things started to get even worse for Emmitt, especially the controversy with him and Troy Hambrick.
For Part 3 of this series, I'll be going over 1998-2000, Emmitt's comeback years after having 2 straight seasons well below Emmitt standards.
With greatness comes backlash, and every great player in every sport has his share of critics and naysayers. I believe that Emmitt Smith has it worse than most. It seems to me like the majority of football fans and media thought Emmitt had it easy and that he wasn't all that great of a running back. The most common misconception is "Put him on any other team besides the Cowboys, and he would have been good, but not great." In the 3-year span from 1998-2000, the Cowboys, coached by Chan Gailey and Dave Campo, were one game under .500 and won ZERO playoff games. As much as I love Troy Aikman, he was done by then. All of those concussions had finally taken a toll on him. Michael Irvin also had to retire prematurely, after a spinal injury ended his 1999 season in the 4th game. Some of the famous names were still on the offensive line, but their best years were behind them at that point. During those seasons, Emmitt's age was 29, 30, and 31. He had taken a ridiculous amount of punishment in his first 28 years, at all levels of football. Usually in that situation, you would have a running back who is just above average struggling.
Emmitt rushed for 3,932 yards and 33 touchdowns during those 3 years, and he wasn't running on fumes either. He was at 4.2 yards per carry in 1998 and 1999, and at 4.1 in 2000. He was in the top 5 in the NFL in rushing yards in 2 of those 3 years. We don't even have to speculate on what Emmitt would do if he played for a mediocre to bad team. He did play for those kinds of teams from 1998-2000, and ran for the 3rd most yards from 29-31 in NFL history behind Walter Payton and Curtis Martin. Once again, most good-but-not-great running backs struggle to keep a job at age 30. Emmitt Smith was a top 5 rusher on a bad team. It would be easy to say that I picked out that particular 3-year stretch to make Emmitt look good, but the fact is, you can pick ANY 3-year strectch out of his career and he would be among the leading rushers in NFL history in that age group. Let's not forget that Emmitt has the NFL record for most rushing yards after turning 30. My point is that his supporting cast wasn't great in all of those stretches and was downright bad in others. I said in Part 2 that Emmitt's decline had much more to do with the team's incompetence than his declining skills.
Let's look at what Emmitt had going on in these 3 seasons:
1998
Emmitt had to make the following adjustments:
1.) Learning How To Run Without A Fullback
A lot of people tend to forget about this adjustment. In Emmitt's first 8 years, he spent about 60% of the time behind a fullback, and under Chan Gailey that number got cut in half. The adjustment also meant that Emmitt wasn't hitting the hole as fast. He had to wait another split-second to see how the play developed or see if the player in front of him was able to make the block.
2.) A New Zone Blocking Scheme
This scheme is based on the running back's ability to recognize where the hole is and make a cut to get up the field. This blocking scheme stretches the defense by moving the line, forcing the defensive linemen to move sideways, making them easier to block. The defenders also get tied up because they have to react, and that's where the running back can take advantage of the stretch. Zone blocking is not about blowing your man off the line, it's about staying in contact with him and letting the running back make the adjustment. This scheme was an adjustment for the whole offense, especially since the offensive line was better at man blocking than zone.
3.) Giving Up 3rd Down Responsibilities
The Cowboys signed Chris Warren to be their 3rd down back, as well as giving Emmitt an occasional breather to help lighten his load.
After back to back sub-par seasons full of injuries and having bone spurs removed from one of his ankles, Emmitt was healthy for the first time in 3 seasons. Under new head coach Chan Gailey, he bounced back in 1998 with 1,332 yards and 13 touchdowns, and also became the Cowboys' all-time leading rusher that season. Defenses were still keying on Emmitt because the Cowboys still didn't have a threat at TE, and the Cowboys were without Troy Aikman for 5 games after he broke his collarbone in Week 2. Jason Garrett didn't do a bad job stepping in for those 5 games, but Emmitt played a major role in keeping the team afloat during that stretch, with 90 carries for 390 yards and 3 touchdowns. Making those adjustments after doing things the same way for so long wasn't easy for Emmitt to do, which makes his 1998 season that much more impressive.
1999
Emmitt had an even better season in 1999 despite:
1.) Being the only reliable cog in an inconsistent offense.
2.) Running behind a converted linebacker at fullback.
3.) The Cowboys had 3 of their top 4 receivers out with injury.
4.) Troy Aikman was in and out of the lineup with concussions.
5.) Even more 8 and 9-man fronts.
6.) Missing 9 quarters of football because of hand and groin injuries.
This would be the year that Emmitt proved that he still had it. He was once again on his usual record-setting pace, even leading the NFL in rushing at one point- AT 30 YEARS OLD and supposedly washed up. He and Ricky Watters were the only two 30-year old running backs to rank among the top 10 in rushing in 1999. Emmitt also moved up a couple of spots on the NFL's all-time rushing list, passing Tony Dorsett and Eric Dickerson, moving into 3rd place all-time.
Who can forget that Monday Night game in Minnesota right after Walter Payton's death? Emmitt came out in his memory and had 13 carries for 140 yards and 2 touchdowns in less than a half, more like a quarter and a half. The Cowboys were completely dominating the Vikings, and then it all changed:
In what might be the most unfortunate moment in Emmitt's career, when he started getting close to the end zone on his 63-yard touchdown run, he stiff-armed Vikings cornerback Kenny Wright and got his fingers tangled in his face mask, breaking bones in the back of his hand. He also had a 24-yard touchdown run on his very next carry, after the Cowboys recovered a Vikings fumble of a kickoff, giving him the NFL record for fastest back to back touchdowns scored by one player.....18 seconds. By halftime, on a record-setting pace, Emmitt was done for the game, and even sat the next one out. The Cowboys' offense left when Emmitt did, and they started to fall apart after that. To cap it all off, Troy Aikman suffered a concussion early in the 3rd quarter that knocked him out of the game. I had A SICK FEELING in my body after hearing that Emmitt was done for the game. I really wanted to see him go after Walter Payton's then-NFL single game rushing record. I remember him saying that he was in a serious groove that night, and wasn't even tired yet.
Emmitt still ended up with 1,397 yards and 11 touchdowns, along with a healthy 4.2 yards per carry average. It was a very good season, but it was robbed by a broken hand of all it could have been. With the pace Emmitt was on before he got injured, there is no telling how many yards he would have ended up with. At the very least, I would say his total would have been in the 1,600-1,700 range, and at least 15 touchdowns. At the risk of sounding biased, if Emmitt would have kept up that pace and won the rushing title, he would have been my choice for MVP. Kurt Warner was the 1999 MVP, and there is no question that he deserved it. He took over the starting QB job after Trent Green blew out his knee in a preseason game, and led the Rams to a 13-3 record and Super Bowl win after going 4-12 in 1998.
Emmitt carried the Cowboys on his back in 1999, and he put those numbers and dragged the Cowboys to the playoffs with a beat-up Troy Aikman, Robert Thomas (a converted linebacker) at fullback, Rocket Ismail and Ernie Mills as the starting receivers, and David LaFleur at tight end as his supporting cast. You would think that losing Daryl Johnston to a career-ending neck injury in Week 1 and Michael Irvin to a career-ending spinal injury in Week 4 would have slowed Emmitt down, but he got stronger as the season went on, and the only thing that could stop him were the injuries. That's why I believe he would have won the MVP if he stayed healthy. More than anything, the 1999 season also proved that if Emmitt's talent and production didn't get slowed drastically after the 1995 season, he would have smashed the all-time rushing record much earlier than he actually did, and went over 20,000 yards, which was his goal.
2000
Durring Emmitt's last 3 years with the Cowboys, the Dave Campo era, he was surrounded by amazingly little talent (particularly on offense). The Cowboys finished 5-11 in every one of those seasons. By then, Emmitt was all the Cowboys had going for them, and he had even more obstacles to overcome.
Here is what Emmitt was up against in 2000:
1.) Joey Galloway and Rocket Ismail both out with a torn ACL.
2.) Troy Aikman in and out with concussions.
3.) Underachieving offensive line.
4.) Shuffling of the offensive line because of injuries.
5.) Defensive problems.
6.) Lack of time of possession (not having the football enough to establish a running game).
7.) Playing from behind.
8.) Coaches not utilizing everything.
9.) No commitment to be good at one thing.
Emmitt really had the deck stacked against him in 2000, but what makes it all worse, is that they would even go away from him sometimes when the running game was working. Here is a prime example:
The Cowboys gave away the November 5 game against the Eagles, losing 16-13 in overtime. I personally hold Jack Reilly (offensive coordinator) responsible for the Cowboys losing that game. Robert Thomas might have been the goat in that game, but he should have never been put in that situation in the first place. Why would a coach IN THE MIDDLE OF OVERTIME put the football in the hands of a 3rd year blocking fullback when you had an 11-year veteran halfback that's headed to the Hall Of Fame at your disposal?
Why would a coach decide in as hostile an environment as there is to give the ball to a man that hadn't carried it all day when the other guy had carried it 26 times for 134 yards? Why would a coach take that chance with a player that came into the league as a backup linebacker when the other choice was one of the top running backs in the history of the game at EVERY LEVEL he played?
To justify his decision, Jack Reilly said, "We needed a little bit of mixture in there." It didn't look that way from my TV. To me, it looked like all they had to do was give the ball to Emmitt. Michael Irvin was retired, Troy Aikman was on his way out, but Emmitt still worked about as well as he ever did. With the way he was running, how could he have 84 yards at halftime, 121 through 3 quarters, and only have 134 by the time the game was over? With that game going to OT, Emmitt probably should have had about 175 yards.
When the Cowboys got the ball for the first time in the 4th quarter, they had a 10-3 lead, and then the coaching staff all of a sudden decided to try something else. As a result, they ended up having their first possession of the game that ended without a 1st down, and then they had to punt. As a matter of fact, the Cowboys only ran the ball twice in their first 3 possessions of the 4th quarter. They stopped dominating time of possession and eating up clock to give their defense some rest, and that's what did them in. The next thing you know, the Eagles tied the game TWICE after struggling the whole game.......first with a touchdown at 10, then with a field goal at 13.
That day wasn't the first time Dave Campo and his coaching staff had abandoned Emmitt Smith, their only weapon, and one that rarely failed them. The offensive burden fell on Emmitt because Troy Aikman was in and out of the lineup with repeated concussions, and Joey Galloway and Rocket Ismail were both out for the year with knee injuries. On that particular day, with Randall Cunningham filling in for Troy and the team being short-handed at receiver, you would think it would have been all Emmitt all the time, with a little bit of Chris Warren mixed in.
In the December 10 game against the Redskins, Emmitt carried the Cowboys to a 32-13 win by running for a season-high 150 yards......against the NFL's No. 2 ranked defense. That was also the game that Troy Aikman suffered the concussion that ended his career, on a hit by Lavar Arrington in the 1st quarter. It speaks volumes about his character for him to go out and play like that when his QB was out, other key contributors injured, and the Cowboys being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. The offensive line struggled to open holes for him in the first half, limiting him to just 39 yards on 12 carries, and then Emmitt just took over the game in the 2nd half. Emmitt also went over 1,000 yards in that game, for the 10th straight season, and it would have been 11 if David Shula would have seen fit to give him more carries in his rookie season. Emmitt only got more than 20 carries once in the first 10 games of that season.
I think Emmitt did well to put up 1,203 yards and 9 touchdowns, considering everything he had going against him. I believe he could have gotten 1,400-1,500 if they gave him the ball more often. Better yet, I wonder what the Cowboys' record would have been. Emmitt played on good teams early in his career and bad teams late. Walter Payton did the opposite. Jim Brown only played on good teams. During his career, Emmitt Smith's teams were a total of 12 games over .500, Walter Payton's were 28 games over .500, and Jim Brown's were 45 games over .500. With that being said, can somebody tell me again why Emmitt gets accused of gravy-training?
I'll pick up Part 4 with 2001, when things started to get even worse for Emmitt, especially the controversy with him and Troy Hambrick.
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