The infamous game that sparked off a generational rivalry: The Bounty Bowl
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Here's the detailed story of the infamous Bounty Bowl game that took place between the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles on the Thanksgiving of 1989.
Rivalries are the essence of sport. We enjoy watching football but the game reaches a different level of excitement in certain games where the teams facing one another have bad blood between them. Today, we will take a look at one such game that sparked off an intense rivalry between two teams that continues to exist nearly 30 years later.
The infamous ‘Bounty Bowl’ game took place on the 23rd of November, 1989, and was between the Dallas Cowboys and the Philadelphia Eagles. The game was held on Thanksgiving, which meant the viewership and the fans in attendance ensured the energy in the whole of Texas Stadium was electric. To provide some context, around this period, the Dallas Cowboys were in a rebuilding phase. Ownership had changed hands and, along with that, the team had the new coaching staff and front office personnel in charge.
While this was happening, the Philadelphia Eagles made sure to take complete advantage of this situation and, under their Head Coach at the time, Buddy Ryan, the team was having a good season. The Thanksgiving games are nationally televised, and it has been a custom for the Cowboys to play on this day every year. This year, it was the same scenario, and going into the game, Philly was pretty confident about their odds.
And why should they not have been? Dallas was 1-10 going into the game. Despite having Jerry Jones, Jimmy Johnson, and a rookie Troy Aikman, the team had not figured it all out yet. Herschel Walker, the running back turned politician who recently lost from Georgia where he was representing the Republican party in the US Senate runoffs, was the best player Dallas had that season but he was traded a few weeks in the run-up to this game.
Bounty Bowl saw Eagles HC placed a financial bounty on the heads of the Cowboys’ players:
At halftime, Dallas was down 10-0, at the start of the third quarter, the Cowboys ended up getting the kickoff at the start. The kicker for the team, Luis Zendejas, was run over by Jessie Small, the linebacker for the Philadelphia Eagles. The hit was brutal, and the kicker lay on the floor. The impact of the play on him was visible when he attempted to get back up on his feet but struggled to do so as he wobbled while doing so.
It was evident that he had suffered a concussion after taking a hard hit. While this play may have been dubbed as something that is just another part of the game, the HC for the Dallas Cowboys Jimmy Johnson did not think it happened by accident. Johnson was of the opinion that Buddy Ryan, the Eagles HC, had placed a bounty on the head of his kicker and quarterback, Troy Aikman.
To quote Johnson, here is what he had to state, “I have absolutely no respect for the way they played the game. I would have said something to Buddy, but he wouldn’t stand on the field long enough. He put his bag, fat rear end into the dressing room.” The Cowboys HC took shots at the opposing HC and took a personal dig at his appearance.
In response to Johnson, here is what Ryan had to say: “I resent that. I’ve been on a diet, lost a couple of pounds. I thought I was looking good.” Way to answer that question head-on coach. Ryan dismissed the accusations of having placed a ‘bounty’ by questioning his talents. “Why would I place a bounty on a kicker who can’t kick worth a damn? This guy was in a six-week slump. I wanted him in the game.” After the game had ended, Zendejas, the kicker who suffered a concussion, exposed the HC of the Eagles.
He claimed that during his stint with the team; it was not unusual for players to be financially compensated for hitting a specific player. He claimed that an unnamed player once was given $100-$200 for hitting a punter and kicker. Zendejas’ experience was what convinced Jimmy Johnson that Buddy Ryan had done the exact same thing in this particular instance.
The kicker for the Cowboys had all reason to believe that a bounty was placed upon him as before the commencement of the game, the punter for the Eagles, John Teltschik had warned him that he was one of the targets that the team was attempting to hit. Another key piece of evidence was a story that had circulated in the Dallas region that Zendejas had received a phone call from his former Special Teams HC out of Philadelphia, Al Roberts in which he informed him that Buddy Ryan had told all his players to keep their former teammate on their radar.
It was no surprise that there was bad blood between Zendejas and Ryan because when the kicker was let go from the Eagles; it was Roberts who made that phone call, whereas it has for long been a customary practice for the Head Coach to call players to inform them when they are being let go. Zendejas had gone after Ryan with this statement, “Buddy didn’t have the decency to tell me to my face; he had an assistant coach do it. When I phoned to ask him about it, he hung up on me.”
The Cowboys knew that certain players were on the radar heading into the game. In the same game, Troy Aikman, who was also reported to have a bounty on his head was slammed to the ground by Britt Hager, the linebacker for the Eagles in the first half after the referee had blown his whistle on a play that did not count. Head Coach Jimmy Johnson believed that Troy Aikman’s bounty was $500.
The Bounty Bowl I was a physical game and witnessed a lot of unnecessary roughness. If the game took place in 2022, it would be called the “Flag Bowl”, as taking into account the current rules and regulations, nearly every play would witness a flag being thrown. The defensive players who would end up putting the offensive players out of the game would be heavily penalized and/or suspended.
This game marked the first of two Bounty Bowls. The second game was just 2 weeks later in which these teams faced off once again. That game was not any less physical, it was just wilder than this. However, that is a story for another time! To date, the Bounty Bowl I remain to be one of the most memorable moments in the history of football.
References: American Football Database, USA Today, ESPN
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Sumedh Joshi
(2290 Articles Published)