The Dallas Cowboys won three Super Bowls in the mid-1990s, none as lopsided as their first. The Cowboys beat the Bills, 52-17, in Super Bowl XXVII – a performance that you might not have expected from such a young team.
But the Bills definitely gave the Cowboys an assist that night.
“Buffalo made it easy. They turned it over four times,” Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith said on The DA Show. “They took all the pressure away. When you turn the ball over four times and you take advantage of those four turnovers and score points and the game gets lopsided very early, it makes it easy.”
The Bills led 7-0 but were outscored 52-10 the rest of the way. Had Buffalo not repeatedly turned the ball over, however, the game could have been much closer.
“Let me tell you how tight that game would have been,” Smith said. “We were exhausted during pregame warmup because of the energy we had exuded. It was the magnitude of the game. We had never been in the magnitude of that game before. It was our first-time experience, so the first time experience, you think that you’re going to be ready, and you might go out there and play well once the game settles in. But your back is tight, you’re not as loose as you used to be – because it is the one game, and you don’t want to lose that game. But when Buffalo turned the ball over and you’re starting to get this momentum, you get another level of energy and you just roll.”
The Cowboys scored two defensive touchdowns on the night and took a 28-10 lead into halftime. Buffalo, which had lost the previous two Super Bowls, never recovered.
“Some of them could not help but say to themselves, ‘Here we go again,’” Smith said. “That’s a drop-the-mic moment. They tried to recover from [their mistakes], but they made another mistake, and we drove down and closed it out with one final touchdown.”
Jimmy Johnson, who coaches the Cowboys to two of their Super Bowl titles, was recently elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Johnson, 76, teared up and struggled to find the words to express his gratitude.
That was a special moment for Johnson, yes, but also for Smith and his former Dallas teammates.
“I don’t think Troy or myself or any player that I know of ever seen Jimmy Johnson tear up,” Smith said. “You have this rock of a man, this solid man, that drives you to be the best and only knows one way. And you finally see him get into this place of zen, if you will, and this revelation of QTL, as he would call it – Quality Time Left. The one thing we all search for – men, women, you name it – across the board is affirmation. For Jimmy and for the Hall of Fame to affirm Jimmy as one of those guys, it is overwhelming. It is humbling. You don’t have words for it."