'We Dem Boyz' Shock Seattle
By Mike Fisher | @fishsports
SEATTLE (CBSDFW.COM) -- Sunday marked the 25th anniversary of the incredible Herschel Walker trade, part of the fuel to the last time the Dallas Cowboys experienced glory.
Former coach Jimmy Johnson spent this past week trying to hog that glory, essentially taking credit for a single-handed engineering the deal that would be the jumping-off point for a three-time Super Bowl champ.
But the proper way to gain acclaim isn't to beg for it; it's to play for it. So Jimmy must be elbowed from the stage to make room for the 2014 edition of the Cowboys, though I will generously do so by putting Dallas' monumental 30-23 defeat of the Seahawks in Seattle in a language Jimmy speaks fluently: These Cowboys have brass ones. And you can put that in three-inch headlines.
"We don't believe in individual talent as much as we believe in team first,'' Dez Bryant told me as the Wiz Khalif's rap song "We Dem Boyz" filled the postgame locker room with singing, laughing and dancing. "We're about the bond - all of us together taking (from opponents) what we need to take.''
This win really did resemble the truth of the multi-faceted, taking-that-kept-on-giving Herschel trade to Minnesota in the sense that it took many human cogs to execute it.
By the time Jimmy is finished hair-spraying his myth into into the public psyche, his famous "group jog'' (during which one part of the Walker trade idea was conceived) will be the first-ever "group jog'' featuring just one person.
But this Sunday? Make no mistake about this historic moment in Seattle, just the second time in 20 games the defending Super Bowl champs have been downed here at CenturyLink Field:
This was virtually every player, every coach, every administrator, every staffer. … doing his job.
Tony Romo, Dez Bryant, DeMarco Murray? Of course. But two Dallas tight ends caught touchdown passes.
Three Dallas running backs chewed up Seattle's No. 1-ranked rushing D. Five offensive linemen (and then a sixth, when Jermey Parnell replaced an injured Doug Free late) were stellar in helping Dallas own the clock.
And 11-plus defenders met their responsibilities in clogging QB Russell Wilson's read-option, keying on Percy Harvin's all-purposeness, and fearlessly attacking Seattle superstars like cornerback Richard Sherman.
There were but three breakdowns, two of them dastardly ones on special teams. And they were the backbreakers that nearly separated the "moral'' from the "victory.''
Dallas fell behind 10-0 in the first half when Chris Jones' punt was blocked and returned for a Seattle TD. And then the Cowboys allowed a tie at 17-all midway through the second when Dwayne Harris muffed a punt to set up another gimme touchdown.
A botched snap was one more goof that allowed another free Seattle score, all of which left the Cowboys proudly noting how truly dominant, in every way, they essentially were here.
"Our guys who are big names played lights-out," Orlando Scandrick told me, "and our guys who are supposedly not big names are playing like they're big names.'
These Cowboys are now 5-1 -- the total of wins some critics predicted they'd need all year to amass.
They haven't worried about the critics, they haven't worried about the opponents, and they haven't worried about the potential distractions like contract-extension talk for guys like Murray, Bryant and Rolando McClain,
the gifted middle linebacker who sealed the outcome with an interception with 42 seconds remaining.
There will now be an increased focus on contract-extension talks for Garrett, too, who is making some unofficial history of his own by becoming the fastest coach ever to vault from everybody's "hot seat'' to a leading candidate for Coach of the Year.
"There's no question this is the type of team we want to be," Garrett said, stressing that this is just the start but also stressing the word "team."
That's the right attitude for this time, this place, this era. (It was actually the same attitude in the early '90s for the Cowboys, though some have forgotten that.) It's not about one cog.
It's about every single man who wore a blue Cowboys jogging suit on the trip out here rather than the customary suit and tie ... because this was a business trip but a comfortable business trip.
And it's about another piece of clothing, the polo shirt defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli was wearing on the eve of the game ... And again after the game, on the late-night fight home, emblazoned with the words "All 22'' on it.
"It means it's not just one guy, or 11, it's all 22 at a time," Marinelli told me. "It can never be one thing. It can never be one guy. Everything. Every guy."
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