1990 Dallas Cowboys Season

1990 Dallas Cowboys Season

The 1990 season was the Dallas Cowboys' 31st season in NFL. The Cowboys rebounded from a 1–15 season in 1989 to a 7–9 record. Jimmy Johnson won AP's NFL coach of the year honors.

The season began with a win over San Diego, breaking a 14 game home losing streak. The Cowboys showed some early season fight with two wins over Tampa Bay and a near-miss against Philadelphia, but still stood only 3–7 after ten weeks, and were seemingly out of playoff contention. However, the team caught fire in late November, winning four games in a row (including impressive wins over the Redskins and Saints, and a blowout win over the Cardinals). The Cowboys entered the season's final two weeks needing only one win or Saints' loss to make the playoffs as a wildcard. However, in game 15 quarterback Troy Aikman separated his shoulder early against the Eagles and was replaced by Babe Laufenberg (The Cowboys had traded backup Steve Walsh early in the season and Lauferberg was elevated from 3rd string to backup). With Aikman injured, the Cowboys mustered little offense against the Eagles and lost, 17–3. Meanwhile the Saints upset the 49ers (handing the Niners only their second loss) to keep the Cowboys from clinching in game 15. The next week, with Laufenberg again leading the offense, the Cowboys were thoroughly beaten, 26–7, by the 4–11 Atlanta Falcons. When the Saints beat the Rams the next night, the Cowboys were eliminated from playoff contention.

This season featured the debut of running back Emmitt Smith. Smith held out during training camp and was only a minimal contributor in the season's early games, but began to show his future greatness with a 100-plus performance in a week 5 win against Tampa Bay and had a few other outstanding games during the season.

Read more about 1990 Dallas Cowboys Season:  Porkchop Bowl, Awards and Records

Famous quotes containing the words dallas, cowboys and/or season:

    In its artless cruelty, Dallas is superior to any “intelligent” critique that can be made of it. That is why intellectual snobbery meets its match here.
    Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)

    What do you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives.
    John le Carré (b. 1931)

    The theater is a baffling business, and a shockingly wasteful one when you consider that people who have proven their worth, who have appeared in or been responsible for successful plays, who have given outstanding performances, can still, in the full tide of their energy, be forced, through lack of opportunity, to sit idle season after season, their enthusiasm, their morale, their very talent dwindling to slow gray death. Of finances we will not even speak; it is too sad a tale.
    Ilka Chase (1905–1978)