Nfc’s Top Brass Mix Like Oil And Gold Cowboys’ Jones, 49ers’ Policy Follow Different Paths To Top
The San Francisco 49ers president will be the one wearing a conservative suit.
It will be dark blue or gray. The tie will be perfect. The voice will be measured.
The Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager will be the one wearing a designer turtleneck, or at least a flashy suit.
The shoes will be slip-ons. The voice will be heard in Oakland if a back judge makes a bad call and this guy happens to be roaming the sidelines at the time.
The battle that will take place at muddy Candlestick Park in San Francisco on Sunday is much larger than merely a meeting of the NFL’s two best football teams.
It is much more than great players slugging it out for 3 hours to determine who, in two weeks, will compete in and probably dominate the Super Bowl.
This is not simply Star Wars.
This is Style Wars.
The clash involves not only people, but philosophies. The fight is not only to decide who is better, but who is right.
The 49ers, led by former corporate lawyer Carmen Policy, are “the Firm.”
Quiet, secretive, overly generous to their employees, unafraid of slamming the door on everyone else. The 49ers believe money can buy happiness. They are hoping this season will prove it.
The Cowboys, led by oilman Jerry Jones, are “WKRP in Cincinnati.”
Loud, fun, close-knit, that nutty family down the street. The Cowboys find happiness with players who have been with them since college, ones who believe that the only true star is the one on the side of their helmet.
One of the most celebrated 49ers is Deion Sanders, who has been there four months.
One of the most celebrated Cowboys is Bill Bates, mostly because he has been there 12 years. Sanders, with his reputation as a mercenary wanderer, wouldn’t have lasted four months with the Cowboys.
Bates, a lovable overachiever, wouldn’t have lasted 4 minutes with the 49ers.
The only similarities between the organizations are their football smarts, their willingness to take chances….
And the sweat on the brow of their executives come Sunday.
If the 49ers fail, then Policy fails.
He spent about $4 million last spring to buy a new defense and a new center. Rarely has the phrase “all or nothing” been so appropriate as when applied to the meaning of his mission.
“Anything short of going to the Super Bowl, this will not be a successful season,” Policy said.
If the Cowboys fail, Jones fails.
His dream of being considered a successful football man will be, for the moment, dashed.
It was Jones, of course, who this spring fired coach Jimmy Johnson, hired Barry Switzer and kept most of his team intact while refusing to be lured by free agency.
In other words, the anti-49er.
“One of our local papers gave me an ‘F’ in free agency,” Jones said. “I hope I get an ‘F’ in that every year.”
The differences between the men and their organizations become apparent when they discuss football.
Jones talks oil.
Policy talks gold.
“I sit behind that desk every day and get excited about an oil deal that I may not see a penny on for four or five years,” Jones says. “Because of everything involved, you’ve got to have patience. You’ve got to be able to project.
“And you have to be willing to be hurt a little bit now in order to do better later.”
This is the philosophy behind Jones’ decision to stick with Jimmy Johnson after the team won one game in Johnson’s first year. … and his decision to fire Johnson after consecutive Super Bowl victories.
This is also the reason that, of the 22 starters on offense and defense Sunday, only four have played in a regular-season game for another team. And only one those four has been with the Cowboys less than three years.
That means they have only one new starter, guard Derek Kennard.
“The biggest advantage this team has over other teams is continuity,” Jones said. “These guys know each other. They play hard for each other. I will not give that up.”
The 49ers team portrait is a bit different. Of their 22 starters, seven have played with other teams. And six of those have been with the team less than two full seasons.
Linebackers Rickey Jackson, Gary Plummer and Ken Norton Jr., defensive backs Sanders and Tim McDonald and center Bart Oates are all recent transfers.
To Policy, acquiring those players was like striking it rich quick.
“We could have gone to the Super Bowl three of the last four years, but fell short every time,” Policy said. “Then the whole NFL changed in front of us with free agency. We had a chance to get better faster. We had to take that chance.”
Considering the sporadic successes of free agents during the first two years of the new system, it was a big chance indeed.
More than 140 players changed teams in the first year of free agency, but the two Super Bowl finalists were the same, Dallas and Buffalo, and with most of the same players.
During the season, 49ers officials diligently shield their team from only the most necessary media contact. And when a player says something outlandish, he is admonished by teammates.
“This team belongs to our veterans - it’s their team, they keep it in order,” Policy said. “Nobody from the outside is going to come in here and take over.”
So while Sanders has been allowed to keep his hip-hop end zone touchdown dance, he has been told to wait until he reaches the end zone to do it. And off the field, he has suddenly become as routine and reflective as Jerry Rice.
Perhaps because they are more like a family than the 49ers, the Cowboys are less afraid to show emotions toward each other. Hardly a week passes, it seems, without a story about a food fight or a helmet going through a locker room wall.
Jones does not discount these emotions. Rather, he says they are what hold the team together.
“I am surprised by the success that the 49ers have had with all those free agents, because talent alone is not every bit of it,” Jones said. “I feel we have an advantage in that if our players win it, they know they have won three Super Bowls; all of them, together.”