Remembering the Bounty Bowl 25 Years Later
As the years passed and Buddy Ryan's legacy in Philadelphia became more memory than story line, the coach told me a lot of things about his tumultuous five-year stay as
Eagles head coach.
One thing he would never admit to, just as wouldn't when he was the coach, was The Bounty Bowl.
If you're too young to remember, The Bounty Bowl is the name given to the last time the Eagles played Dallas on
Thanksgiving Day. It was 1989, the Eagles were on the way to their second straight playoff run; and Dallas was 1-10 on the way to 1-15.
There wasn't much of a plot, or much of a game to write about, after the Eagles blew out the Cowboys, 27-0 as most expected would happen.
Until word came trickling out of the Cowboys locker room that first-year head coach Jimmy Johnson and some of the Cowboys' players accused Ryan of placing a bounty on both Cowboys' kicker Luis Zendejas, who Ryan had released a couple of weeks prior, and
quarterback Troy Aikman.
According to Johnson there was a $200 bounty on the kicker and a $500 bounty on the quarterback.
And it sure did appear that backup linebacker and special teams player Jesse Small, a Ryan hand-picked favorite, went right after Zendejas on the opening kickoff and the only time the Cowboys kicked off all day.
Ironically as Zendejas, who said he was warned, crouched down on the play, it was he who was called for a penalty for a low block.
Ryan, as he often did, laughed it off.
"Why would I place a bounty on a kicker, who can't kick worth a damn,'' he said then, and repeated to me years later when he subject was broached. "The guy was a six-week slump. I wanted him in the game.''
Ryan would say to me after the fact that he would tell his players at times before games. "I want to find out who their backup quarterback is today.'' But never used the word bounty.
Johnson and Dallas players ripped Ryan to pieces after the game. The coach said he went to find Ryan after the game, but "his fat ### ran off the field.''
Ryan's response?
"Fat?'' he questioned. "I've been doing that Slim Fast thing, I thought I Iost a few pounds.''
When Cowboy Steve DeOssie said about Ryan "that was the pathetic ramblings of a senile, old man.'' Ryan's retort was "I'm not that old.''
The Bounty Bowl was Ryan's Redemption. And if Eagles fans didn't already love him, they did after that. He stood up to the big, bad Cowboys, a team that had tormented the Eagles and their fans for years and laughed at them. Out loud.
It was also just one of Ryan's memorable moments against the Cowboys.
"When I got to town they told me all I had to do was beat the Cowboys and the fans will love me,'' Ryan said. "So I beat them every time we played.''
Actually Ryan lost his first Cowboys' game, 17-14, in 1986, but then beat them the next seven times in non-strike games.
And the strike game, in which legendary Cowboys head coach Tom Landry ran up the score, according to Ryan. And did use his regular players who had crossed the picket line well into the fourth quarter, set off another Ryan memory.
The teams played a few weeks later and the Friday before the game just after practice Ryan told a couple of beat writers to make sure they watched the whole game.
So with seconds to play and the Eagles ahead 30-20, Randall Cunningham took a knee on first down, took a knee on second down, and then faked a kneel down and threw deep to Mike Quick on third down.
When grilled about what he did after the game, Ryan smiled.
"(Landry) opened the can of worms,'' he said. "I closed it.''
After a 21-20 win over Dallas in 1990 when Calvin Williams caught a Randall Cunningham touchdown pass in the final seconds, Ryan gave us one of the best quotes ever.
"The Cowboys knows we're going to beat them,'' he said. "They just don't know how.''
Mets-Yankees might be another one-way rivalry.
