Johnson Styles Cowboys Into Winner Again

John Eisenberg of the Baltimore Sun says he hasn’t heard as many Jimmy Johnson haircut jokes lately, not since the Dallas Cowboys have become winners. The Cowboys meet the Detroit Lions today in the NFL playoffs.

“In the three years since he left the University of Miami,” writes Eisenberg, “Johnson has done more than just demonstrate he knows what he is doing. He is the NFL’s most powerful coach. No other has such control of his fate.

“It happens because his best pal, Jerry Jones, owns the team, and Jerry has made Jimmy a king. The Cowboys have no general manager. Johnson’s voice is the loudest on trades and draft picks. He gets his way on just about everything. Anyone who complains is on the next plane to Seattle.

“Initial skepticism was loud because most teams believe in some division of power. But Johnson has wisely used, not abused, his power. He has traded players for draft picks and picks for players in a true frenzy, cut lazy starters, made some four-dozen deals and elevated his team’s talent tenfold.

“ ‘He has fooled some people who have been around longer, and that is not easy,’ ” said Mike Ditka, before the Cowboys beat his Bears.

“The centerpiece was trading Herschel Walker to the Minnesota Vikings for a trainload of players and picks. Walker went bust and the Cowboys have gotten at least nine players from the deal, among them Emmitt Smith, this year’s league rushing champion. It is perhaps the most lopsided trade in NFL history.

“So the team of the future is winning now, and in a way it makes the NFL whole again to have the Cowboys back.”

Trivia Time: What two NBA players had the best nights of their careers on the night of March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pa.?

Media Consultants: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are looking to the most unlikely place for suggestions on who their new football coach should be. The public relations staff, probably in jest, mailed ballots with the names of possible replacements and sent them to local media.

On the ballot were unemployed coaches Buddy Ryan, Sam Wyche, Lindy Infante and Chuck Knox; assistant coaches Floyd Peters of Tampa Bay and Mike Holmgren of San Francisco, and college coaches Dennis Erickson of Miami, Dennis Green of Stanford and Bruce Snyder of Cal.

Wrote Ed Werder of the Orlando Sentinel: “Rick Odioso, the team’s director of public relations, would not rule out that (owner Hugh) Culverhouse will consider the information in making his decision.”

Yeah, right.

Crowd Count: California may not be considered an ice hockey hotbed, but it’s a fact that every National Hockey League game played in the state--Inglewood and San Jose--this season has been a sellout.

Just Wondering: Observes Leonard Shapiro of the Washington Post: “Lots of kinesiology majors at Florida State. Anybody know why?”

Quotebook: New York Giant linebacker Lawrence Taylor, comparing his golf and football games: “I’d rather play in the Super Bowl than shoot 70 . . . but I’d rather shoot 65 than play in the Super Bowl.”