Friday, July 31, 1998

For once, Cowboys' pre-season opener might actually be hot ticket

By Frank Luksa

The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS -- NFL pre-season scrimmages disguised as full-price games usually create as much drama as hauling hay, a hot task best finished soon and forgotten.

Star players make a cameo appearance, rookies and reserves take over, a great deal of running around and falling down follows, customers get overheated, coaches become overexcited, and owners retire behind a curtain to count the gate.

But these are unusual times for the Dallas Cowboys. For the first time in 10 years, a sense of anticipation clings to such an event Friday night at Texas Stadium.

The Cowboys meet Seattle in an exhibition of first-time 1998 football in which the result packs the consequence of a falling leaf. Yet there is much underlying substance to the competition for reasons evident since January, when Barry Switzer resigned as head coach with two palm prints on his shoulder blades.

This will be the debut of two-in-one Coach Chan Gailey, head man and offensive coordinator, his new assistants and their altered systems, re-discovered grit and some old Cowboys trying to prove they still can play. The franchise hasn't been visited by as much turnover and turmoil since the arrival of Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson in 1989.

Change breeds suspense and, for a change in this case, a show worthy of attention. Johnson faced a start-over challenge when he became coach. Gailey's mandate is a do-over, the restoration of a roster with holdover talent but one neglected so long that its foundation cracked and created last season's 6-10 ugly tilt.

Mention of Johnson reminds of the schoolboy scene his first pre-season home victory produced. Coach and owner ran gaily off the field, hand in hand, intoxicated by fumes of success that lingered for eight days. A 1-15 season was then set in motion when bad breaks and worse officiating let New Orleans escape with a 28-0 decision at the gun.

Gailey's emotion in advance of his coming-out can be found at the end of tight reins. The man is cut from serious cloth. Yet even Gailey recognizes the ironic whirl that overtook his personal world.

Only 10 months ago, the team he now coaches produced his "worst nightmare" by swamping the team for whom he then called offensive plays. Coaching the Cowboys was the most remote thought in Gailey's mind after Dallas beat Pittsburgh in the 1997 season opener, 37-7. Gailey only hoped they would allow him to keep coaching the Steelers.

"Isn't that amazing?" he said, reflecting upon how the more things change, the more different players he gets to coach. "You think about where you were a year ago. and now it's, 'My goodness, look at what you're going to do.' "

This is as close to a gee-whiz remark as Gailey utters. Don't misinterpret, as others apparently do by the tone of questions about how awed he's supposed to be by setting foot in Texas Stadium. As if it's the Sistine Chapel instead of a 27-year-old playpen with a hole in the roof.

"I don't have time to sit around, call a couple of buddies and talk about it. I've got a job to do. I can't let that dominate my thought process," he said.

It's not like Gailey hasn't attended an NFL kickoff or doesn't know that he gets four tries to gain 10 yards and a first down. The man is a pro. Hence the professional cool of his pre-game mindset.

"You always have that twinge about, 'How well are we going to do?' But I've had that every day of my life," he said. "When you're in charge of offense or defense, you wonder how your group is going to play. As head coach, you wonder how the team will play.

"I've been asked if it's something unbelievable about being in Texas Stadium. No, it's not. I can't be all goose-pimply. What kind of leader would that be?

"There's a little bit of excitement and fear because you don't know what will happen. It's like standing over an eight-foot putt to win it all. There's fear you won't make it and excitement that you will."

So it begins for the Cowboys under a new baton that is the headline attraction more than the athletes. Gailey reported about 80-85 percent of his offense was in place, but not to expect anything except standard stuff. Exotics await until the Cowboys master such basics as a quarterback sneak.

"There'll be no double-reverse passes," said Gailey.

So you have that play?

"Not this week."

Gailey knows how to tease with the prospect of seeing the Cowboys loosen up and throw a double-reverse pass. If there wasn't so much else going on, that alone would be enough to keep a person interested in pre-season scrums.

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(c) 1998, The Dallas Morning News.

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