#32

 

EMMITT SMITH

The 1990 draft marked one of those times the NFL forgot about suspending reality and the right thing actually happened.

In 1989, the Dallas Cowboys had drafted Troy Aikman, the premier quarterback available, with the first overall pick. Head coach Jimmy Johnson was bound and determined to get a running back able to carry the load and take some of the pressure off of his young quarterback. The Cowboys had the 21st pick in the following draft, and Johnson was very familiar with a back from the University of Florida named Emmitt Smith.

Johnson, who had been the head coach at the University of Miami when Smith was a record-setting high school running back at nearby Escambia (Fla.) High School, had tried to recruit Smith. He knew he had no chance because the Hurricanes featured a pro-style offense while the Florida Gators promised to use Smith as their featured back. Smith performed phenomenally well in college, and Johnson was hoping against hope that the great back would fall to him at the 21st pick. Johnson laughed at scouting reports knocked the 5-foot-9 Smith for being too small and too slow, because he had posted an unimpressive time of 4.7 seconds in the 40-yard dash at the draft combine.

“You would have had to be an idiot not to think Emmitt Smith was not going to be a great player,” Johnson said. “I had seen enough of him as a high-school and college player to know that he was going to be a great one. However, when we did our background check on Emmitt, the things we hadn’t known about him locked that pick up completely. He was the kind of player that left everything on the practice field. He played hurt. He always wanted the ball and he cared about doing the little things to win.”

Johnson knew the 21st pick was not high enough to get Smith. So instead of staying put and going after defensive players, he traded up with the Pittsburgh Steelers so he could pick Smith with the 17th pick. Prior to making the pick, the phone rang in the Cowboys war room. The Atlanta Falcons had wanted the pick and proposed a trade, but Johnson refused to even consider it. “It’s too late, we’ve made our pick,” said Johnson. “We’re taking Smith.”

Smith held out through all of his first training camp, using owner Jerry Jones’s words against him. Jones had called him the fourth-best player in the draft the night before the Cowboys selected him. Jones had wanted to pay him as the 17th-best player but Smith kept reminding Jones of his own words and eventually Jones met his price. After the long holdout, Smith became the Cowboys’ starting running back the second game of his rookie season. However, Dallas was not using him the way they needed to. Midway through the season, Smith had only one 100-yard game, and the Cowboys appeared to be settling into a pattern where they were using him 10-to-15 times a game. Smith brought this to the attention of the coaching staff. “Every week in meetings, the coaching staff had come to the conclusion that we needed to gain 100 yards rushing in the game but they weren’t giving me the ball,” Smith said. “I let them know that and said I needed the ball to get 100 yards. They started to listen after that.”

Smith went on to gain 937 yards and score 11 rushing touchdowns as a rookie—not exactly a legendary pace but enough to earn him AP offensive rookie of the year honors and to show the Cowboys that they needed to make him the focus of the game plan. Aikman was clearly a big-armed quarterback who could stretch the defense and wideout Michael Irvin was special as well, but neither could handle the primary role in the Cowboys’ offense the way Smith could.

The decision to give the ball to Smith paid big dividends after that. Smith led the league in rushing with 1,563 yards and 12 touchdowns in 1991 and continued to dominate with 1,713 yards and 18 touchdowns in 1992. The Cowboys rolled to the Super Bowl and beat the Buffalo Bills, 52–17. Yes, the Cowboys got great play from Aikman, Irvin, the offensive line, and the defense, but it was Smith who was dominating with his incessant pounding and relentless attack.

“That was Emmitt’s outstanding quality,” said Aikman. “The relentlessness, the determination, and the success. He was not going to allow the idea to enter his head that he wouldn’t meet his goals and he wouldn’t be successful. He was dominant and just about impossible to stop.”

The success continued on an every-year basis. He rushed for 1,486 in 1993, capturing both league and Super Bowl MVP honors. He rushed for 1,484 yards in 1994 and an amazing 1,773 yards in 1995, posting 46 rushing touchdowns in that span, and giving the Cowboys a dominant ground game in an era when the pass was king. Feature stories were written by knowledgeable writers saying that Irvin was the most important of the Cowboys triplets because his ability kept defenses from focusing on Smith and stacking the defense against him. That argument had some validity, but the reality is that Johnson made Smith the focus of the game plan, when he left the team after a blowup with Jones, new head coach Barry Switzer did the exact same thing.

Smith was simply never satisfied and he was on pace to become the NFL’s all-time leading rusher. His idol, Walter Payton of the Chicago Bears, was in his sights. Smith had always been goal-oriented but had done it within a team concept. He was getting his yardage and the Cowboys had won three championships. As the yards piled up, he was humbled by the idea of approaching Payton, who died in 1999 of a rare liver disease. When he passed Payton’s all-time rushing record of 16,726 yards three years after Payton died, Smith was both joyous and tearful at the accomplishment. He gave a little point to the sky after an 11-yard run against the Seattle Seahawks that put him over the top. “For you, Walter,” he said to himself.

He would go on to push the mark to 18,355 yards before retiring after the 2004 season. Today, five years after his retirement, Smith stands as not only the league’s all-time leading rusher, but also the all-time leader in carries (4,409), touches (4,924), and rushing touchdowns (164). He is second all-time in both total touchdowns (175) and total yards from scrimmage (21,579). Not too bad for a guy considered too small and too slow to play in the NFL.

“I just wanted to do my job,” Smith explained. “I never wanted anyone to say that Emmitt Smith wasn’t giving everything he had. That was my bottom line.”