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FROM HIS CAR PHONE, DRIVING somewhere in the Metroplex, Jerry Jones was explaining why it was that, despite injuries, suspension, free-agent defection and the usual who-shot-J.R. atmosphere that invariably surrounds his Dallas Cowboys, Jerry's Team could very well repeat as NFL champions. ""We don't have as much vertical depth this year, but what we do have is horizontal depth,'' he informed me.
""Jerry,'' I said, ""I'm really not sure there can be such a thing as horizontal depth.''
""Well now,'' came back the reply from the old wildcatter, ""if you sink an oil well down deep and then you find a whole rich field all around it, I think what you've got yourself there is horizontal depth.''
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And, indeed, however oxymoronic, that may be as good a way as any to describe the Cowboys, who are after all not just a football team but a singular cultural marvel. They are not a slice of Americana, as we usually say, but rather, a broad brush of it. While most of our successful sports franchises display some distinct personality, only the Cowboys offer the big tent. In fact, the team has always presented -- even boasted -- extremes, going back to its very emergence as a power, when devout athletic Christianity was at the helm, cheered on by abject T&A.
The Cowboys' dominion only increases, for Jones has taken what was a benign national phenomenon and turned it into a self-sufficient strike force. No owner in any sport has ever been as influential and creative as Jerry Jones -- he, who arrived in Big D unknown, disparaged as ""The Crock From Little Rock.'' Now his credentials are such that the NFL is suing him for $300 million for trampling league rules, while he is countersuing for more than double that. Incredibly, in a rich consortium of 30 franchises, nearly one quarter of all the NFL shirts and caps and other gimcracks sold bear Cowboy insignias. The team has sold out every game in the '90s, home or away, with the hostile faraway stadiums filled up with Cowboy worshipers. 'Jones himself has been offered in excess of $500 million for a franchise and stadium that cost him a mere $160 million seven years ago. Naturally, his defending champions will open the NFL season this week on ""Monday Night Football.''
There has never been anything quite like this sports dynamo -- not even the Yankees of lore. The current Chicago Bulls create a sort of rock-star atmosphere wherever they play, but the reality is that the Bulls as an entity are to Michael Jordan as the Grateful Dead were to Jerry Garcia. The Cowboys are different. This will sound facetious, but the only team they remind me of is the beloved Bay Bombers of the old Roller Derby. Even the most fiendish Derby villains could be transformed into heroes simply by being dressed in Bomber orange and black. In a way, the saddest part of the arrest of Michael Irvin, the Cowboys' star receiver, came when police found him a few months ago in a motel room with drugs and topless dancers. His first words were: ""You know who I am.'' He probably still doesn't understand that it doesn't really matter that he is Michael Irvin, star. He is just another player currently wearing Cowboy number 88.
Jones, of course, is able to see a silver lining even in this scandal. ""We all love seeing people get up off their knees,'' he says -- and his history is good. With the Cowboys, redemption has always been as marketable as idolatry.
Now, with the team's hegemony safe from sea to shining sea, Jones is turning his flank south. The Cowboys are already Mexico's Team, and a major appeal is directed to Hispanic-Americans. At a scrimmage in El Paso this summer, a record 51,000 showed up. The opponent was Houston, which after years in Dallas's long shadow is departing for Tennessee next year. There is a certain symbolism in this. Once Houston and Dallas were the municipal twins of the Lone Star State, but one can legitimately argue that strictly because of the Cowboys -- a football team! -- Dallas now stands alone, while Houston has fallen into the next lower tier, on a level with the likes of San Antonio and Austin.
Certainly no city has ever been so attached to a sports franchise as Dallas. Even the slightest feather that falls amongst its heroes is whirled into high drama by the local gum-flappers of the airwaves. Last year, there were 37 different Cowboy radio shows in the metropolitan area, where listeners could follow every twist in the strained relations between All-Pro quarterback Troy Aikman and his rapscallion coach Barry Switzer and every hint of sedition, racism or homosexuality on the team. Cowboy books are churned out at a rate that would do Martha Stewart proud; another happy season begins with the release of ""Hell-Bent,'' a raw account of last year's ugly success by Skip Bayless, the team's most perceptive observer.
Notwithstanding, Dallas seems to find its municipal identity in its team. It is widely believed that the city's redemption from its darkest day -- Nov. 22, 1963 -- came with the rise of the Cowboys, their glamour and their glory sprinkling stardust upon the discredited city. Once it was blithely assumed that Dallas had somehow killed President Kennedy. Now, no matter who else may be accused of that crime -- the CIA, the Mafia, Cuba, aliens -- Dallas is no longer impeached. And J.R. is gone, too. Dallas is just the home of the Cowboys, the NFL champions, a franchise that has never seen its equal. You know who I am. I am Dallas; I am the Cowboys.
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