BrandDunk

I’m not naive enough to think there isn’t widespread bad behavior in NFL locker rooms, but it is always fascinating to learn the extent of what is really going on.  Peter King includes some juicy excerpts from Jeff Pearlman’s new book, Boys Will Be Boys: The Glory Days and Party Nights of the Dallas Cowboys Dynasty, in his Monday Morning Quarterback column.  All I can say is wow, the Dallas Cowboys were running their team just like Barry Switzer ran his teams at OU.  A win at all costs attitude and no rules to keep players in-line.

It’s one thing for Deion Sanders to blow off learning his defensive assignments, but it’s a whole other spectrum for Michael Irvin to stab a guy and get away with it.  Something that Pearlman details in his book.  I think this is going to be a must read for Dallas Cowboys fans, and something I’d like to get my hands on a copy of this Christmas.  I’m guessing Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue will not be asking for this book as stocking stuffers. Buy a copy of the book at Amazon.

Poor Troy Aikman, I bet some of his fellow Cowboys put that guy through hell.  I gotta imagine he was disgusted by a lot of the behavior he saw from his fellow teammates.  He transfers away from the Oklahoma Sooners to get away from Switzer, only to wind up with the same guy coaching him in Dallas.

Excerpt from Peter King’s MMQB below:
“2. I think Boys Will Be Boys, Jeff Pearlman‘s new book about the Dallas Cowboys in their glory days, and their decline from them, should not be dismissed as the rantings of a jaded sportswriter. Pearlman, obviously, has hit several nerves, and I applaud him for it.

Pearlman writes that Michael Irvin, incensed that tackle Everett McIver, in mid-haircut, would not leave a barber chair at training camp in 1998 so Irvin could get his haircut first, stabbed McIver in the neck. McIver was rushed to the hospital and survived, but not without losing a lot of blood. Irvin’s silence on the charge has been deafening. I asked a Cowboy who played on that team if the story was true. “Absolutely,” the Cowboy said. “I’m surprised it was kept quiet over the years.”

Pearlman writes in great detail about the White House, the house of ill repute Dallas players owned and managed near Valley Ranch, and he lampoons Deion Sanders, quoting Dallas corner Kevin Smiththusly: “When Deion came in, something changed for the worse. Guys who should have been studying football on a Wednesday at 12 o’clock were focused on other things. Deion was such a freaky athlete that he could shake one leg and be ready to cover anyone. But the guys following his lead weren’t nearly as talented.’

In the first defensive team meeting Sanders attended, Pearlman writes, Sanders put his feet up on a table, and when defensive coordinator Dave Campo asked him to break down a play, Sanders said, “Hey, coach. I got that dude right there. Wherever he goes, I go. All that Cover Two stuff you’re talking about — y’all work that out.”

Pearlman writes that Troy Aikman was disgusted by Sanders. And Barry Switzer, too. He also notes that Switzer’s liquor tab during the week of the Pittsburgh-Dallas Super Bowl in Arizona was $100,000. That’s a heck of an example to set, Barry. What a great hire.”

I sure hope that Irvin and Prime Time do a good job counseling Adam “Pac Man” Jones on how to stay out of trouble in the NFL, it sounds like they’ve got a lot of first-hand experience to offer him.  What makes this even more crazy, is that if this is the stuff that we know about now, from the book, then imagine all of the wild stuff that happened and will never be reported.  Boggles the mind.

Do hearing these types of stories affect your opinion of opinion of those Super Bowl winning Dallas Cowboys teams?