With that said, he is the first one to rattle the cages of his fellow teammates in an article here. We don’t know what Ellis has said in the locker room to his teammates, but the outspoken defensive linebacker isn’t afraid to slam them live. 

When the Cowboys were 3-0, Ellis realized they weren’t playing to their full potential. So did we. But he says he didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to be compared to a whiner. 

In Jeff Pearlman’s book “Boys Will Be Boys” it was former coach Jimmy Johnson who tore the team apart even though they were winning. When the Cowboys were 11-3 during the 1992-93 season he ripped into the team and wouldn’t let them eat on the plane after a 20-17 loss to the Redskins. Johnson was indignant. On the plane, he cracked open a Heineken and yelled at the airport staff to not serve food to the team. 

“Typical Jimmy,” said Ray Horton. “He was single-minded and he wa shard, and all he cared about–I mean, the only thing–was winning football games. It probably wasn’t the healthiest way to be, but it made him a successful coach.”

Ellis is right. The Dallas Cowboys are not, never have, played to their potential. They have the staff and the players, but none of it is meshing together. But the difference between Ellis and Johnson is that Johnson did it in private, on the team plane. Ellis is doing it on television, prodded by the mainstream press. 

You lead behind closed doors. Right, Wade Phillips?

Pearlman begins his book with a blaze: the drama that ensued in the Cowboys locker room between Michael Irvin and Everett McIver. 

Pearlman doesn’t really solve the mystery of the incident, but he does provide some insight. It is no secret that to be the Playmaker, Irvin had to work hard at it. Pearlman explains that Irvin would run routes until he vomitted on himself. He worked so hard that he demanded respect. He didn’t like McIver, a young guy who played at a Division II college. He was big, but some beleived he appeared lazy, including the Playmaker. 

On this day in July 1998, the Cowboys were already seeing the decline of the dynasty, an obviously painful experience for Irvin. Irvin was on edge.

Players were getting haircuts and Irvin told McIver to get out of the chair. McIver ingored the demand. Pearlman perfectly seizes on the drama of the event, offering a very tense play-by-play of how Irvin took a pair of scissors and slashed McIver’s throat.  

It is a perfect opening to a book that is 355 pages. You get through the first chapter and you don’t want to put the book down. 

Chapter 2 is on Tom Landry’s unfortunate ending in Dallas and the Jerry Jones-Jimmy Johnson era.