Demise of Cowboys’ Triplets began 15 years ago in Philadelphia

The sudden — and painful — demise of The Triplets began on a routine pitch-and-catch between Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin on Oct. 10, 1999.

The play had been rehearsed countless times in order to set the proper timing and establish a second-nature rapport.

As a result, it was an effective tool for the three-time Super Bowl Cowboys of the 1990s. It became the most bang-bang pass play in the team’s arsenal.

But on this second Sunday in October 1999, the Cowboys were playing the Eagles at Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium, which meant that the two teams must compete on the most unforgiving turf in the National Football League.

And then it happened, on the first play of the Cowboys’ third offensive series, Irvin ran his trademark pass route — the skinny post.

The Playmaker had just been made to feel relevant again in Chan Gailey’s offense after catching only one touchdown pass in ’98, and now he had purpose. He made a quick dig to the left and caught Aikman’s pass delivered on the money.

Two Philly defenders converged on the tackle. The play went for a gain of 8 yards to the Dallas 39.

Two unexpected things happened next.

Irvin didn’t get up and Eagles fans cheered.

Scary turns rude

The game clock stopped at 5:16 of the first quarter. Irvin lay unresponsive on the floor of The Vet for a full 15 minutes (what seemed an eternity) while team medical staff and EMTs attended to him. It was later learned he had lost feeling in both arms and legs.

The name Darryl Stingley began to permeate the press box.

Irvin’s body went eerily rigid. He was painstakingly raised and placed on a steel gurney, white-gloved hands crossed at his chest, eyes mostly shut, flat on his back.

He was wheeled away to a nearby ambulance just outside the tunnel leading from the field. There, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones awaited his franchise record-setting wide receiver to begin a frightening trip together to the hospital.

Few may remember that Dallas came into this game 3-0 in the NFC East standings and led at the time, 3-0. Or even that the Cowboys eventually lost the game, 13-10.

But the breath-grabbing moments immediately following Irvin’s final career catch in the first quarter are etched in the memory of anyone who attended the game or watched on TV — forever.

To Philly fans, Irvin represented the most hated player on America’s most hated team.

His inability to get up was cause for celebration. (Hey, these same people once booed Santa Claus.) And when it became evident that No. 88 was down and out, Philly fans transitioned quickly from restlessness to morbid curiosity to a chorus of cheers and applause.

The next morning, one Philadelphia newspaper headline read: “Unspeakable, even for us.”

The third member of The Triplets, Emmitt Smith, described afterward being “disgusted to death.”

Prognosis & principals

Preliminary tests taken at Thomas Jefferson Spine Trauma Center revealed that Irvin suffered substantial swelling of the spinal cord near the base of his neck, between the C3 and C4 vertabrae.

Although the feeling in his extremities came back, Irvin remained hospitalized overnight for observation. The next morning, Cowboys team physician Robert Vandermeer spoke encouragingly of the early prognosis.

Meanwhile, the benign nature of the catch-and-tackle raised serious questions about Irvin’s future as a football player.

Eagles cornerback Bobby Taylor had used his arms to made initial contact. Strictly routine. Safety Tim Hauck flew over the top to finish the play. Nothing illegal.

But Hauck’s shoulder pads grazed the back of Irvin’s neck just enough to exacerbate the inevitably hard fall onto an even harder turf at The Vet.

There was a somber tone in both locker rooms. “I didn’t think I hit him that hard,” said Hauck, who continued to play another three NFL seasons.

Medical findings on Irvin’s skeletal composition later showed that he carved out a Hall of Fame career despite a congenital condition known as cervical stenosis.

Irvin isn’t the first NFL player whose career was cut short by the discovery of this condition: an abnormally narrow spinal column by which another trauma to the spinal cord may increase the possibility of paralysis.

Identity lost

The Triplets — Aikman, Irvin and Smith — provided the impetus behind the trio of 1990s Super Bowl titles and an overall postseason record of 11-2 from ’91 through the ’95 playoffs.

Then in ’96, the Cowboys lost to the upstart Carolina Panthers in the NFC divisional playoffs, 26-17. Two years later, they were upset in the wild-card round by the Arizona Cardinals, 20-7, at Texas Stadium.

Cowboys fans desperately wanted something to break the spell. This occurred when the ’99 team started the season with successive wins over Washington, Atlanta and Arizona by outscoring the opposition, 100-49. Only the Week 1 overtime victory at Washington, 41-35, was even close.

Rocket Ismail, acquired in free agency during the off-season, snagged the game-winning,76-yard touchdown pass in OT to beat the Redskins, who had held a 35-14 lead in the fourth quarter.

The Cowboys’ bandwagon was filling up again.

However, the much-anticipated Irvin-Ismail combination never had a chance to get off the ground. Ismail ended up leading the ’99 Cowboys in pass receptions with 80 for 1,097 and six touchdowns. Irvin finished with 10 catches, including three for touchdowns in the first three games.

Tearful farewell

Irvin retired on July 11, 2000, amid his own laughter and tears during a news conference inside Texas Stadium. Although the announcement was inevitable for several months, Irvin struggled to get the words out.

To the end, he remained the emotional leader of The Triplets.

Until his final catch in his final game, he also was the poster child for his legendary work ethic.

The Playmaker tried unsuccessfully to find a doctor who would clear him to play because of the risks involved, but he did try. Ultimately, it was family — not medical experts — that made up his mind for him.

“From a physical standpoint, I can probably still line up and play football,” Irvin said at the time of his retirement. “But I knew that there would never be peace with my wife or peace with my family if I ever played again.”

Epilogue

The 2000 Cowboys Media Guide pictured on its cover, in a pair of silhouetted action photos, Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith.

No Michael Irvin.

Oct. 10, 1999, really was “The Day the Music Died” moment in Cowboys history. Since then, the franchise has won only one playoff game (Jan. 9, 2010, vs. Philly) while missing the postseason 10 times in the last 15 years.

The two-year Chan Gailey Era was marked with a poison pen on that trip to The Vet. The ’99 team won only five times after a 3-0 start to finish 8-8. (Sound familiar?)

While the ’99 Cowboys made the playoffs as a wild card, they were eliminated, 27-10, at Minnesota in a game that Emmitt Smith started out fast but ended up with a broken hand that kept him out the second half. Two days later, Gailey was fired.

The 2000 Cowboy Media Guide also pictured a new No. 88: Jackie Harris, 11-year veteran tight end formerly with the Packers, Buccaneers and Titans.

The inside cover was devoted to a fond goodbye ... to Tom Landry. The legendary Cowboys coach of the first 29 seasons lost his battle to leukemia in February 2000.

The Triplets — inducted as a group into the Ring of Honor but separately into the Pro Football Hall of Fame — stayed together for 10 seasons but took fewer than 3 1/2 years to totally disband.

Aikman retired after the 2000 season with chronic back pain and mounting concussions. He immediately went into the Fox TV booth on Sundays.

Smith was waived by the Cowboys on Feb. 27, 2003, after breaking Walter Payton’s all-time NFL rushing record during the ’02 season. He played another two seasons in Arizona.

Gone were The Triplets, and it happened fast.

Memorable monikers

Here are the best of the rest among NFL team nicknames of the Super Bowl era (and what led to each group’s break-up):

Fearsome Foursome: Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen, Lamar Lundy and Rosey Grier were the originals. Grier completed this tour de force when he arrived at the LA Rams from the NY Giants in a July 1963 trade. They stayed together four years until Grier retired just before Super Bowl I in January 1967 because of an Achilles injury. Grier is the last living member of the foursome.

Doomsday Defense: The Tom Landry Cowboys appeared in five Super Bowls and won two — SB VI and XII. Doomsday I had Bob Lilly, Jethro Pugh, George Andrie and Larry Cole, with Lee Roy Jordan in the middle, and together they helped to hoist the first Lombardi Trophy in franchise history. Doomsday II came along five years later and featured Harvey Martin and Randy White (co-MVPs of SB XII), along with the Ed “Too Tall” Jones, Charlie Waters and Cliff Harris to name a few. Doomsday became obsolete along with Landry in 1989.

Over-the-Hill Gang: George Allen moved from the LA Rams to Washington in 1971 and stockpiled older players from around the league immediately. Allen loathed rookies. He traded away draft picks and future draft picks. One ’71 trade alone brought in a half-dozen of his former Rams players, including Jack Pardee, Diron Talbert, Maxie Baughan and Myron Pottios, which led to the “Ramskins” as a side nickname to “Over-the-Hill Gang.” The acquisition of 10-year veteran QB Billy Kilmer led to Allen’s only Super Bowl appearance with the ’72 team. “George was given an unlimited budget — and exceeded it,” deadpanned owner Edward Bennett Williams, who fired Allen after the ’77 season.

No-Name Defense: The ’72 Dolphins are still the only undefeated team in NFL history. Led by such defensive notables as Manny Fernandez, Nick Buoniconti, Bill Stanfill and Vern Den Herder, with Jake Scott and Dick Anderson roaming the secondary, this team finished 17-0 with a 14-7 victory over Washington in SB VII. The self-effacing Dolphins defense took a special pride in making big plays and celebrating its lack of superstars.

Steel Curtain: The ’70s Steelers won four Super Bowl titles in six years in no small part due to Mean Joe Green, L.C. Greenwood, Dwight White and Ernie “Fats” Holmes. This front four stayed intact until Holmes left the Steelers after the ’77 season and was replaced first by Steve Furness, then by John Banaszak. Green was drafted No. 1 overall in 1969 to get Chuck Noll’s dynasty rolling. Of the original Steel Curtain, only Green is still living. He’s also the lone Hall of Famer of the group.

Purple People Eaters: Minnesota’s Alan Page, Carl Eller, Jim Marshall and Gary Larsen carved quite an apropos nickname for themselves in the late ‘60s and well into the ‘70s. It was coined after Sheb Wooley’s 1958 novelty classic by the same name. The song made it all the way to No. 1 on the pop charts. The football team rolled into four Super Bowls in eight years (’69 through ’76) — albeit they lost each time. Page and Eller are HOFers. Larsen retired after the ’74 season and was replaced by Doug Sutherland.

The Hogs: Redskins O-Line coach Joe Bugel created the nickname during training camp of ’82. The original Hogs (left to right) were Joe Jacoby, Russ Grimm, Jeff Bostic, Mark May and George Starke. They won Super Bowl XVII over the Dolphins and lost the following year to the LA Raiders before Starke retired after the ’84 season. Jim Lachey and Raleigh McKenzie became notable “replacements” for Hog-driven Super Bowls teams of ’87 and ’91 before Joe Gibbs retired in ’93. Bugel earlier left DC to take a head-coaching job with the Arizona Cardinals in ’90.

Da Bears: One and done, although Saturday Night Live kept the oft-mimicked moniker on the pop-culture radar well into the ’90s ... and beyond. In 1985, Da Bears went 15-1 and made good on their rap rendition of the Super Bowl Shuffle with a postseason stranglehold on the Giants, Rams and Patriots by a combined 91-10 score. Buddy Ryan, architect of the 46 defense, left Chicago after the ’85 season to become head coach of the Eagles. Mike Ditka was fired after going 5-11 in ’92.

K-Gun: Buffalo had it until Jim Kelly retired after the ’96 season. The 1990s Bills made it into four consecutive Super Bowls — losing all four — as Kelly provided the trigger finger to a fast-strike, no-huddle offense far ahead of its time. It’s been validated by Hall of Fame voters who have inducted Kelly, Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed since 2002.

Greatest Show on Turf: Kurt Warner led this fastbreak offense of the St. Louis Rams to record-smashing heights from 1999 through 2001, including a Super Bowl championship after the ’99 season. Warner was the grocery-store stock-boy-turned-QB who ran Mike Martz’s spread offense to perfection. Wide receivers Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt and Hall of Fame running back Marshall Faulk flooded the field along with a couple of receivers on every play. The “show” ended with Warner’s departure from St. Louis after the ’03 season.

— Ray Buck

94-42

The Cowboys record with Michael Irvin, Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith in the lineup together, including 11-5 in the playoffs.

.691

The Cowboys winning percentage in games with Irvin, Aikman and Smith.

3

Super Bowls won by the Cowboys during the

Triplets’ 10

seasons together.

This story was originally published October 9, 2014 at 11:04 AM.