Once upon a time five-year plans were a way of life in the NFL.
Fire your underachieving coach, hire a new one and then give him five years to remake the franchise into a contender. Those five-year plans were the rule in the 1970s and 1980s. Patience on the part of management was mandatory because there was only one way to build a team back then -- through the draft. And it was a slow process.
The new coach generally inherited a bad team, so his first season would be a wash as he implemented new systems and incorporated new players. He could finish with 4-5 victories and there would be no reason to panic. In the second season, more new players would enter the mix and improvement to 6-7 victories would be the goal.
Still more new players would arrive in the third year and a winning season would be the expectation. A division title would be the goal in the fourth year and the Lombardi Trophy in the fifth year. Pick the right coach and your patience would be rewarded, as was the case in Pittsburgh with Chuck Noll.
But the explosion of television dollars plus the arrival of both free agency and the salary cap in the 1990s all but eliminated those five-year plans. The salary cap prevented the dynastic teams from keeping all their good players, and free agency could provide an instant infusion of veteran talent. Franchises that couldn't win before (New Orleans, Seattle, Tampa Bay) were suddenly hoisting Lombardi trophies.
So the NFL became a win-now league.
Since 2000, Cam Cameron, Romeo Crennel, Hue Jackson, Jim Mora Jr., Mike Mularkey and Marty Schottenheimer all were fired after one-year stints as NFL head coaches. Dennis Erickson, Dick LeBeau, Marty Mornhinweg, Mike Munchak, Greg Schiano, Pat Shurmur, Mike Singletary, Tom Cable and Jim Zorn were gone after two years. The new breed of NFL owners are not patient men.
But the five-year plan is making a comeback in 2015 -- and it's coming back in Dallas.
Jerry Jones had his Cowboys on a 20-year plan since winning their last NFL championship in 1995. But that plan was officially scrapped this offseason.
Jones gave his head coach Jason Garrett a new five-year contract that carries him through the 2019 season. The Cowboys also gave Pro Bowl wide receiver Dez Bryant a new five-year contract that carries him through 2019. And, coincidentally, NFL passing champion Tony Romo has five years left on his contract that carries him through 2019.
If the Cowboys are to win another Super Bowl in the Jerry Jones era, it will come in the next five years. It must come in the next five years. Jones himself is not getting any younger. And neither is Romo. He needs a Super Bowl for his legacy. And Jones, 72, needs another one for his.
Romo is 35 this season. He'll be 39 when his contract expires. The window for the Cowboys will close as the quarterback ages.
Only Roger Staubach won a Super Bowl at the age of 35. Only Jim Plunkett won at 36, while Johnny Unitas, John Elway and Tom Brady all won at 37. Only Elway managed to win a Lombardi Trophy at 38, becoming the oldest quarterback ever to win a Super Bowl.
This season will be Romo's 10th as the starting quarterback of the Cowboys. He already holds all the franchise passing records, erasing the marks but not the memories of Troy Aikman and Staubach. This has never been a football town that judged quarterbacks by their statistics.
It's all about winning in Dallas. Aikman had more Super Bowl victories (3) than Romo has playoff victories (2), and Staubach's Super Bowl count matches Romo's playoff count. If Romo wants his name spoken in this town with the same reverence as Aikman and Staubach, he needs to start hoisting a Lombardi Trophy or two.
The new contributor category has cracked open the door to the Pro Football Hall of Fame for Jerry Jones. He has three Lombardi Trophies -- all with a team built by Jimmy Johnson. But his three rings have not attracted the attention of the Hall of Fame voters yet. Winning a fourth Lombardi Trophy with a new generation of players and coaches would add considerable teeth to his resume.
So the five-year clock is now ticking.
Sports on 07/24/2015