Cowboys Legend Emmitt Smith Wanted to Sign with Dolphins; Who Said No?

The course of Dallas Cowboys history featuring Emmitt Smith nearly changed if not for ... Don Shula?

Seeing franchise legend Emmitt Smith briefly don the colors of the Arizona Cardinals was awkward enough for Dallas Cowboys fans. 

But Smith himself was almost responsible for such a culture shock during the prime of his career. 

Speaking with fellow NFL alumni Ryan Clark, Channing Crowder, and Fred Taylor on the trio's podcast,"The Pivot," Smith claimed to have taken matters into his own hands when he faced a contract dispute with the Cowboys after picking up both the NFL rushing title and a Super Bowl XXVII ring during the 1992 season. 

Given a month to seek out a new deal elsewhere, Smith personally reached out to the Miami Dolphins, then led by the legendary duo of quarterback Dan Marino and head coach Don Shula. At that time, Miami lingered as an AFC contender thanks to the downright historic efforts of Marino but struggled on the ground: in 1992, Miami ranked 24th out of 28 teams in rushing, the attack led by Mark Higgs and Bobby Humphrey.

“I picked up the phone and called Don Shula myself and told him I wanted to come to Miami and play for Miami,” Smith said. “I knew Dan Marino didn’t have a running game."

Smith appealed to Shula that he was the missing piece for a South Beach group that fell one game short of facing the Cowboys in the Super Bowl. The Pensacola native was also interested in returning to the Sunshine State, having burst onto the national football scene at the University of Florida before the Cowboys made him the 17th pick of the 1990 draft. 

"I want to help you and help Dan get a championship,” Smith recalled telling Shula. “I said, ‘Bring me back to the state of Florida.’"

It was Shula, however, that dashed Smith's dreams of a Floridian homecoming. Smith encouraged Shula to make him an offer that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones couldn't match, but the NFL's all-time winningest coach could not be swayed, citing team chemistry.

"He said, ‘If I do make this offer and you don’t come, all my other players will see what I put on the table for you and it’s going to mess up my chemistry,'" Smith said.

The rest is history, at least from a Dallas perspective: Smith - after the Cowboys started the 1993 season 0-2, forcing Jones to bend to Emmitt's contract wish - would spend the next nine seasons with a star on his helmet, becoming the NFL's all-time leading rusher in the process. Miami attempted to bolster its run game with third-round rookie Terry Kirby and gave Smith a taste of what he was missing in the infamous 1993 Thanksgiving upset win at Texas Stadium. Smith, however, had the last laugh, leading the league in rushing again and earning MVP honors in another Super Bowl victory, a 30-13 win over Buffalo. One more awaited in 1996 when Dallas disposed of Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XXX.

The Dolphins missed the playoffs that season and have not been back to the AFC title game since. Marino retired after the 1999 season without a Super Bowl ring. The lack of a consistently threatening rusher is often cited as a reason why he was forced to go without. 

Dallas' success in the final years of the last millennium partly hinges on a series of "what if's." Smith's fortunately futile flirtation now perhaps lies chief among those questions. 


Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags

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