World News – USA – Thanksgiving 2001: An Odyssey of the Dallas Cowboys

Last Sunday, the 2001 harvest festival celebrated its 19th anniversary. Times. On that day, head coach Dave Campo, quarterback Ryan Leaf and late ’90s old rocker Creed joined forces for one of the most subtle, but somehow forgotten afternoons in Dallas Cowboy history.

While the game became a talking point online last weekend, it wasn’t out of nostalgia for everything the cowboys did on the field that day. Instead, social media was full of videos and photos from Creed’s halftime show.

First I watched the clips and started giggling. Basking in an insane display of post-grunge ham, I knew full well that this would surely be a popular internet meme if it happened today. However, watching it also made me curious to go back and see what actually happened on the pitch during the game.

The more I delved, the more I remembered how really crazy that afternoon was. It is a treasure trove of coaching misconduct and incompetence that is worth revisiting and learning from. Instead of doing the traditional “Top 10 Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving Memories” posts that we always see, I decided to play a Thanksgiving game that is as wild as it is forgotten.

The Cowboys entered the 2001 Thanksgiving Festival with a 2-7 record, but unlike that 2020 roster, the 2001 team wasn’t lucky enough to play in a bad league and was never seriously competitive, even if they weren’t mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.

Overall, the 2001 season was quite difficult for Dallas. It was the second of three consecutive 5-11 campaigns under Dave Campo. To date, Campo is the only head coach in the franchise’s 60-year history who hasn’t made the playoffs at least once.

During the off-season, Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman was ousted from the team and became the second of the « triplets » to retire. He succeeded Hall of Fame recipient Michael Irvin, who walked into the sunset after his back injury in the 1999 season.

Aikman’s void left a revolving door of callers, with Ryan Leaf, Clint Stoerner, Anthony Wright and second-round newcomer Quincy Carter each playing at least two games in 2001. Dallas’ QB troubles would continue to varying degrees until Tony Romo took over Drew Bledsoe in 2006.

The Thanksgiving matchup with coach Mike Shanahan and Brian Griese cited Broncos as a truly bizarre thing for Dallas. Everything about Thanksgiving 2001 is downright fascinating. From a squad made up of a who’s who of random cowboys to one of the worst games in a Hall of Fame career to the inappropriate coaching decisions from Campo to the band Creed. This game is just a rich landscape of incompetence.

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Dallas Cowboys, Thanksgiving, Tony Romo