Tom Landry’s Coaching Legacy

The NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, “America’s Team,” have been a success on and off the field for more than 30 years. They are a fan favorite in the state of Texas, across the US and internationally too. It’s the game on and off the field, and the people who have contributed to that game, that are at the heart of the Cowboys’ great success.

Throughout the franchise’s history, the Dallas Cowboys have had a number of stars whose skills and accomplishments have created legends and contributed to the history of the Dallas Cowboys. Countless players have given up the single star and blue and white jerseys of the Dallas Cowboys and taken to the field at Texas Stadium. In doing so, some of them, like Bob Lilly, Roger Staubach and Tony Dorsett, have become legends.

The Dallas Cowboys are one of the most successful teams in National Football League history and hold numerous league records, thanks to these players and many others over the years. However, it’s not just the players who have contributed to the Cowboys’ success, it’s also those who walk on the sidelines at every practice and game. Tom Landry was one of those men. In fact, he walked on the sidelines as coach of the Dallas Cowboys for an extraordinary twenty-nine years.

During Landry’s reign as head coach of the Dallas Cowboys from the franchise’s inception in 1960 until his departure in 1989, the team set a number of records. One of those records is the most consecutive winning seasons, 20 total, from 1966 to 1985. Also, under Landry’s reign, the Cowboys were two-time Super Bowl champions. The list of team records, part of Dallas Cowboys history, set under Landry’s reign goes on and on.

Tom Landry, a native of Texas, attended the University of Texas before interrupting his education to serve in the US Army Air Forces during World War II. Returning from the war, he returned to college, where he played fullback and defensive back for the New Year’s Day bowl game-winning Texas Longhorns in 1948 and 1949. From 1949 to 1955, Landry played defensive back for the NFL, where in 1954 he was selected. like an all-pro. In his last two years as a player, he also took over as assistant coach. In just 80 games, Landry had 32 steals. At the start of the 1956 season, Landry became a full-time coach as the defensive coordinator for the New York Giants (his last team as a player). The team’s offensive coordinator was none other than Vince Lombardi. Under the guidance of these two men, the Giants made three NFL Championship appearances from 1956 to 1959.

In 1960, Landry became the first head coach of the newly established Dallas Cowboys franchise, a role he would hold for 29 seasons (1960-1988). The Cowboys’ early years were tough, but Landry’s hard work and determination slowly paid off as they posted 10 wins in the 1966 season and reached the NFL Championship Game. Dallas lost the game, but it was the start of what would be their 20-year span of winning seasons.

During Tom Landry’s tenure, the Dallas Cowboys became two-time Super Bowl champions (1972, 1978), won 5 NFC titles, 13 division titles, and Landry compiled the third-most wins of all time for a team. NFL coach with a 270-178-6 record. . His 20 career playoff wins are the most by any coach in NFL history. One of the most impressive achievements is his record coaching of a team in 20 consecutive winning seasons (1966-1985), an NFL record and one of the longest winning streaks in professional sports.

Landry brought many new innovations to the game during his NFL coaching days. During his time as defensive coordinator for the New York Giants, Tom Landry revolutionized the defensive game with the introduction of the now popular 4-3 Defense. He had four linemen (two ends and two defensive tackles on each side of the offensive center) and three linebackers: middle, left and right. Landry’s innovation was to have the middle linebacker get up and move back two yards. Previously, a lineman had been placed over center. Landry also invented and popularized the use of cues (analyzing offensive tendencies) to determine what the offense could do.
Vince Lombardi, coach of the Green Packers at the time Landry was hired as coach of the Dallas Cowboys, had implemented a “Run to Daylight” idea, where instead of a specific assigned hole, the running back would go to a fairway. . Landry decided that the way to stop him was to take away the daylight from him, and therefore honed his own 4-3 defense thus creating the “Flex Defense”, a defense that altered his lineup to counter what the offense could do. . Flex Defense was also innovative in that it was a zone defense against the run, as each defender was responsible for a given area of ​​space and had to stay in that area before knowing where the play was going.

After inventing Flex Defense, Landry invented an offense to score while reviving the moving man and shotgun formation. Landry’s greatest contribution in this area was his use of the “pre-switch,” in which the offense would switch from one formation to another prior to the snap of the ball. Although this tactic was not new, having been around since the early 20th century, Landry was the first coach to use the approach on a regular basis with the idea of ​​breaking down the locks the defense used to determine what the offense could do.

Known as a quiet and religious man, Landry took it all in stride and was unfazed by all the hype surrounding Cowboys football and Team USA. Landry’s twenty-nine years with the team came to an end shortly before the 1989 season, when the Cowboys were sold to Jerry Jones. Landry was replaced by Jimmy Johnson, Jerry Jones’s former teammate at the University of Arkansas. Landry’s unceremonious firing is, to this day, regarded as a classless and disrespectful act on Jones’s part. Landry was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame less than two years after his last game. In 1993, Landry was inducted into the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor at Texas Stadium.

Tom Landry died of leukemia at the age of 75 in Dallas on February 12, 2000. The Dallas Cowboys wore a patch depicting Landry’s signature fedora on their uniforms during the 2000 season to honor this history icon. of the Dallas Cowboys. Tom Landry’s vision and ideas transformed the Cowboys’ many stars into legends. He himself left a great legacy with the Dallas Cowboys and the National Football League in general.