The Jimmy Johnson Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor celebration will be shown in entirety on ESPN
The Jimmy Johnson Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor celebration will be shown in entirety on ESPN
Saturday night is it. The night. At long last the Dallas Cowboys and Jerry Jones are about to induct former head coach and Pro Football Hall of Famer Jimmy Johnson into the team’s coveted Ring of Honor. We did it.
This is obviously a long time coming for Johnson as he should have been in the ROH long ago. Whatever you want to say was the cause for his absence is up to your own decision-making, but on Saturday night he will officially join the greatest players, coaches and front office figures in team history in the team’s own Hall of Fame.
The ROH inductions typically happen at halftime of Dallas Cowboys games. Earlier this season when Dallas hosted the Seattle Seahawks, DeMarcus Ware was inducted at halftime.
Jimmy Johnson’s Ring of Honor Ceremony will be broadcast on ESPN during halftime of Saturday night’s game
As ROH inductions are typically done at halftime they are usually reserved for the in-stadium audience. While intermission can sometimes feel rather long, these are generally quick ceremonies where Jerry Jones offers a few words and then the inductee(s) speaks as well.
Given the magnitude of this induction and how overdue it is, it seems as if it, like the Jimmy Johnson Dallas Cowboys in general, is happening in the most America’s Team way possible.
ESPN will officially be broadcasting the entire ceremony at halftime according to ESPN.
Jerry Jones, Jimmy Johnson Speeches Shown Live at Halftime
At halftime, Jimmy Johnson, the Cowboys’ two-time Super Bowl Champion head coach and Pro Football Hall of Famer, will be inducted into the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor by Cowboys Owner, President and General Manager Jerry Jones. ESPN will air the presentation live, which will include Aikman, additional members of the team’s Ring of Honor, and members of the Cowboys 1992 and 1993 Super Bowl Championship teams in attendance with Johnson and Jones.
It worked out wonderfully (aka a decision was made) that this game is being broadcast by ESPN which, as of the 2022 season, features Troy Aikman. Aikman served as the first true Cowboys decision between Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson meaning it is vital for him to be in attendance for the culmination of this collection of relationships.
Aikman reportedly had a heavy hand in the induction happening in general. ESPN’s Todd Archer wrote about how he and Charlotte Jones got Jerry and Jimmy together in a multi-hour conversation that led to the decision. Incidentally the announcement was made in Charlotte, not sure if that was a purposeful pun, when the Cowboys visited the Carolina Panthers a few weeks back.
It took one final meeting for it to all come together. In late October, Cowboys executive vice president Charlotte Jones, Jerry’s daughter, and Aikman, who has known Johnson since he was 14 years old, helped facilitate the two-hour conversation between Johnson and Jones at The Star.
Aikman did not want to discuss the private meeting, but the ring of honor secret remained until Nov. 19, when Jones and Johnson walked onto the Bank of America Stadium field before the Cowboys played the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte.
A Netflix crew working on a documentary about the Dallas owner and general manager followed the pair. Johnson and Jones waved to the crowd behind the Cowboys’ bench in a moment that was supposed to look unscripted.
About 30 minutes before kickoff, Jones announced on the Fox pregame show, Johnson’s television home as an analyst for three decades, that the coach would be inducted into the Cowboys’ Ring of Honor at halftime against the Lions, which meant Aikman, who will call the game for ESPN, would be at AT&T Stadium.
“This kind of closes the circle for all of us,” Aikman said.
Again, in the most Dallas Cowboys way possible, the sequence of this all was apparently documented by Netflix which means we will get to see even more of it at some point. Again – America’s Team.
But ultimately the point here is that this is happening and that it will be available for all to see. Kudos to ESPN for ensuring that this would be the case.