The Dallas Cowboys thought they had a new dynasty on their hands in the Terrell Owens era with Tony Romo. It all came crashing down on the plane ride back from a bitter fall-from-ahead loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
At least, that appears to be the tipping point in a story told by former Cowboys WR Patrick Crayton. On the JacquesTalk show with Jean Jacques Taylor, he relayed a story about how a joke suddenly lost its humor. He noticed Romo working on plays individually with TE Jason Witten and accidentally brought it to everyone’s attention.
While he admitted that these small conversations could be simple things like how to adjust to defenders, Crayton says the “secret plays” grew into an issue after starting out more innocently. Owens said when Crayton first noticed it that they should include him in their routes, too, but the Pittsburgh loss brought everything to a head.
“It became a little joke, but then we started seeing it more and more and more. We started noticing a lot of balls going to [Witten]”, Crayton said. He said that he and Owens put No. 82 jerseys, Witten’s number, in everyone’s locker so they’d get the ball.
Asked when the joke stopped being funny, he pointed to the 2008 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. The game essentially ended with Romo throwing a pick-six targeting Witten on an ill-advised throw. That ended a 13-13 tie and the Steelers won 20-13 with under two minutes to go. Relive Deshea Townsend’s pick-six here for a quick pick-me-up before practice starts, why don’t you.
After the game, Crayton said “There was a little explosion on the plane”—a figurative one, of course. “Let’s just say that we got on the plane and ‘a player’, TO, said, ‘He keeps on forcing that damn ball to 82’”.
The Cowboys were 8-4 going into that game, and finished the season 9-7, losing three of their last four. They missed the postseason and released Terrell Ownes after the season, which took him by surprise.
The year before, with Owens, the Cowboys posted a 13-3 record and nearly won a playoff game. They also made the playoffs the previous season.
During his three years with the Cowboys, Owens caught 235 passes for 3,587 yards with 38 touchdowns. He only earned one Pro Bowl nod despite consistently producing with 1,000-plus yards and 10-plus touchdowns each season.
So do Crayton and Owens have a case to make? Well, it depends on when all this actually happened because his targets were consistent in 2008. He saw 64 targets in the first seven games, for example, more than half of his targets for the season. Over the final nine games, Witten only saw 57 targets.
And he had 141 targets the year before, so I’m not sure how much sense any of this makes. But I’m not about to complain about the Cowboys hurting themselves for stupid reasons. Obviously there were many factors leading to Dallas releasing Owens, who was near the end of his career.
But Crayton pointed out that a lot of players—except Witten—started disappearing after that season. He only lasted one more year with the team that drafted him. Terrell Owens, by the way caught only three passes on nine targets in that Steelers game for 32 yards. But he also scored the Cowboys’ only touchdown on the day. Witten caught six passes on 10 targets for 62 yards.
After releasing Owens, the Cowboys finally won a playoff game the following season. But they wouldn’t post another winning record or make the playoffs until 2014. Owens had two more solid seasons, playing until age 37, but he never won a playoff game after leaving San Francisco.
