The night before Super Bowl XXX in the Dallas Cowboys’ hotel in Tempe, Ariz., Larry Brown found himself in a room with Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin and Deion Sanders. Frustrated by Disney’s refusal to increase its endorsement fee, the group made a pact:
If one of them won Most Valuable Player, they were not going to give the iconic “I’m going to Disneyworld!” sound bite for the company’s traditional TV commercial.
“Larry, you’re in, right?” Sanders asked/told Brown.
Aikman won MVP in Super Bowl XXVII. Smith in XXVIII. Irvin was an All-Pro receiver who in 1995 amassed 111 catches and 10 touchdowns. Sanders was the NFL Defensive Player of the Year and a freakish athlete able to score on offense, defense and special teams. Brown was a former 12th-round draft pick with hands so bad Smith nicknamed him “Edward,” as in Scissorhands. Brown winning MVP was an even longer shot than him making the Cowboys’ roster as the 320th overall pick in the draft.
Shrugged Brown in sheepish agreement, “Sure, whatever.”
Two interceptions. One prestigious award. One persistent regret.
Now, exactly 23 years and one day later, the only TCU alum to be named Super Bowl MVP still anguishes over one of the biggest drops of his life.
“The Disney people ran up to me on the field after the game, and I told them ‘Sorry, can’t do it’,” Brown says with a smile on his face and a Super Bowl XXX ring on his finger. “It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I don’t even know what the fee was, or what Deion and them thought it should be. I just know I should’ve not remotely turned down that opportunity.”
Since the clock struck zeroes on the Cowboys’ 27-17 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers on Jan. 28, 1996, their horrible fortunes have followed the path of Brown’s bad decision. Out of the limelight, nestled in irrelevance.
As the Patriots and Rams immerse themselves, their fans and their cities in the fun and festivities of Super Bowl week, America’s Team struggles to remember what it’s like to command sports’ biggest spotlight and produce heroes on football’s grandest stage.
It’s been so long that the player that propelled the Cowboys over the Steelers that glorious night in the desert now has a youngest son – Kam – that recently enrolled at Texas A&M as a blue-chip receiving recruit. Living in Colleyville and working for DallasCowboys.com and the team’s vast radio network, Brown will this year turn 50.
“It’s been a long time all of the sudden,” Brown says. “Seems like just yesterday I was starting as a 20-year-old. Now I’ve got three kids, and they get on me about once having muscles but now having gray whiskers.”
In the past 23 years the Cowboys have won seven NFC East titles and four playoff games. But Super Bowl XXX was their last significant victory.
The last time they were champions, Dirk Nowitzki was an unknown 17-year-old and the Mavericks were banking on The Three Js of Jason Kidd-Jim Jackson-Jamal Mashburn. The underachieving Rangers were managed by Johnny Oates. The floundering Stars were in their third season. DFW’s sporting venues were Texas Stadium, Reunion Arena and the 20-month-old Ballpark in Arlington. TCU still played in the Southwest Conference.
It was so long ago that Braveheart was new, AOL was cool and the “Macarena” was hot. In 1995, we were fascinated by O.J.’s trial, Michael Jordan’s return to the NBA from baseball, the second season of Friends and a 19-year-old U.S. Amateur champ named Tiger. Flight attendants were still stewardesses, the Rams were moving from LA to St. Louis and local TV sports anchors included Scott Murray and Curt Menefee (yes, that one).
23andMe wasn’t a twinkle in a DNA company’s eye, it was a precursor of the Cowboys’ imminent voyage into the void.
If you are 30 years old or younger, you likely have no sense of the unbridled joy and daily delirium of having a team in the Super Bowl. Newspaper special sections. Websites devoted to 24/7 coverage. Entire TV stations on location. Dale Hansen unplugged, every damn night. Features and highlight packages and tribute songs and …
Since winning Super Bowl XXX the Cowboys have been a model of mediocrity. A .527 winning percentage (194-174) in the regular season. Only 4-10 in the playoffs. And not a single appearance in the NFC Championship Game. Twenty of the NFL’s 31 other teams have been to the ultimate game since Dallas, including multiple berths by the Broncos (4), Packers (3), Giants (3), Rams (3), Steelers (3), Seahawks (3), Falcons (2), Ravens (2), Panthers (2) and Eagles (2).
During the Cowboys’ absence the Patriots have gone to the Super Bowl an astonishing 10 times, nine with Tom Brady at quarterback.
Worse, they are on the short, sour list of NFC teams to not even play in a conference championship game since 1995: Cowboys. Redskins. Lions. Yuck.
Owner Jerry Jones, who was 53 the last time he was presented the Lombardi Trophy, reflected on his team’s dismal drought at last week’s Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama.
“Standing here in Mobile, we’re a long way from the Super Bowl,” Jones said. “I thought about that when I was sitting there watching the game with the Rams – ‘I’m going to be sitting there that first day down in Mobile, and it’s going to seem like a long way from the penthouse to the outhouse’.”
Thanks to Brown, Jones was giddy – and vindicated – back on that Super Sunday at Sun Devil Stadium when VCRs all across the Metroplex were humming and taping because DVRs hadn’t been invented. On a night when Dick Enberg and Phil Simms called the game on NBC, Dave Garrett did radio play-by-play on 103.7 FM KVIL (from 1995-97 Brad Sham left the Cowboys to broadcast Rangers games on KRLD 1080 AM), demonstrative Red “First Dowwwwnnnn!” Cashion was the referee and Diana Ross was the halftime show, the Cowboys jumped to a 13-0 lead but ultimately had to sweat down the stretch.
The cornerback’s first interception of Steelers quarterback Neil O’Donnell set up Aikman’s 17-yard completion to Irvin and then Smith’s 1-yard touchdown run for a 20-7 lead. Pittsburgh, however, scored, recovered an onside kick, scored again and forced a Dallas punt to set up a potential game-winning possession at its 32-yard line with four minutes remaining. The Cowboys’ party was trending toward panic.
But similar to the third-quarter pick, Cowboys defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer called a blitz that hurried O’Donnell into a bad decision and a worse throw. Brown, the only player within six yards of the pass, cradled the ball in his belly and scampered 33 yards to the Steelers’ 6. Smith scored two plays later to restore a 10-point lead, allow fans to exhale and teammates to commence their coronation.
Smith scored two touchdowns, both set up by Brown interceptions. The former Horned Frog was voted MVP for his big plays and 77 yards in returns, more than the rushing totals of both Smith and Pittsburgh’s Bam Morris.
“On the second one I remember Deion running beside me yelling for me to pitch him the ball,” Brown recalls. “But there was no way I was taking that chance. I tried to score, but I was worn out.”
The Steelers ran 80 plays; Cowboys 48.
The win cemented Dallas’ dynasty as the first team to win three Super Bowls in four years. It allowed the Cowboys to tie the 49ers for the most Super Bowl wins with five. It was witnessed by the second-largest audience in TV history behind only the MASH finale. And it validated Jones, who took huge risks in parting with head coach Jimmy Johnson, hiring Barry Switzer and giving a record free-agent contract to Sanders.
On the post-game podium, Jones smiled gleefully even as Switzer playfully punched him.
Yelled Switzer, “We did it our way, baby!”
Jones had no reason to believe he wouldn’t make it back, multiple times even. Cowboys fans took the success for granted. No one realized that night in Tempe was the star-studded peak, rather than a sustainable pattern.
Because of his reluctant, naïve deal with teammates, Brown wasn’t the star of Disney’s parade in Florida (in an ironic twist, Smith took his place). But he did get invited to New York the following week, where he appeared on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” alongside Norm Macdonald.
Joked Brown in the segment, “Get used to us. We’re just getting started.”
It was, however, the beginning of the end.
Less than a month later, Brown signed a $12 million contract to play for the Raiders. Irvin was suspended for the first five games of the 1996 season after a drug-related arrest. Smith was carried off the field on a stretcher with a neck injury in the season-opening loss at Chicago. Aikman threw more interceptions than touchdowns in a shocking season that ended with a playoff loss in Carolina. Switzer was fired a year later after a 6-10 disaster.
The Cowboys still haven’t put it all back together … 23 years and counting.
