The Day the Rebuild Became Real

How a cold afternoon in Chicago gave a young Cowboys team something it hadn't possessed in years: proof.

Before the Dallas Cowboys became the team of the 1990s, they had to become a playoff team again.

That sounds obvious now.

It wasn't on December 29, 1991.

There were no Lombardi Trophies waiting in the Cowboys' locker room at Soldier Field. No dynasty. No Triplets mythology. No certainty that Jimmy Johnson's great reconstruction project was going to end anywhere near Canton.

There was only a young football team, a cold afternoon in Chicago and a postseason game Dallas hadn't been able to win for nearly a decade.

Three seasons earlier, the Cowboys had gone 3-13. Two seasons earlier, 1-15. In 1990 they improved to 7-9 but missed the playoffs.

Now they were 11-5, back in January football and standing across from Mike Ditka's Chicago Bears.

The rebuild had produced progress.

What it still needed was proof.

A Team Arriving Before Anyone Knew It

The names were becoming familiar.

Emmitt Smith had just won the NFL rushing title with 1,563 yards.

Michael Irvin had led the league with 1,523 receiving yards.

Troy Aikman was emerging as the quarterback Dallas believed he could become.

But the Cowboys who arrived in Chicago were not yet the Cowboys we remember in highlight films.

Aikman, still recovering from a knee injury suffered late in the regular season, wasn't even the starting quarterback that afternoon.

Steve Beuerlein was.

There is something wonderfully appropriate about that.

The first playoff victory of the coming Cowboys dynasty wasn't delivered by the quarterback who would eventually raise three Lombardi Trophies.

It was delivered by the backup who helped keep the season alive long enough for the future to arrive.

Dallas Hit First

The Cowboys didn't enter Soldier Field cautiously.

They entered it like a team that had grown tired of being introduced as promising.

Dallas jumped to a 10-0 first-quarter lead, first on a Ken Willis field goal and then on a one-yard Emmitt Smith touchdown run.

Chicago answered with field goals in the second and third quarters, cutting the lead to 10-6.

Then Beuerlein and the Cowboys answered.

Late in the third quarter, he found Jay Novacek for a three-yard touchdown.

Dallas 17. Chicago 6.

It wasn't glamorous football.

It didn't need to be.

This was December at Soldier Field. Style points were unlikely to survive the wind chill.

Emmitt Carried More Than the Football

If the afternoon needed a symbol of where Dallas was headed, Emmitt Smith provided it.

Twenty-six carries. 105 yards. One touchdown.

Not a spectacular statistical explosion.

Something more useful.

Control.

The Cowboys had spent the previous few years collecting talent. Smith was becoming the player who could turn that talent into an identity.

When Dallas needed to shorten the game, he ran.

When Dallas needed a difficult yard, he ran.

When Chicago knew Dallas wanted to run, he ran anyway.

That would become familiar soon enough.

The Bears Would Not Go Away

Chicago had won 11 games for a reason.

Jim Harbaugh kept throwing. The Bears kept moving the chains. Chicago finished with 372 yards to Dallas' 288 and held the football for nearly 38 minutes.

In the fourth quarter, Harbaugh found Tom Waddle for a six-yard touchdown.

The lead was 17-13.

Soldier Field was alive again.

And suddenly this wasn't a story about a young team arriving.

It was a story about whether that young team knew how to finish.

Chicago had chances. Dallas bent. But the Cowboys did not surrender the lead.

The defense forced three Bears turnovers, including two interceptions of Harbaugh, and the final minutes disappeared without the collapse that Cowboys fans had spent too many years fearing.

Then the clock reached zero.

Dallas Cowboys 17. Chicago Bears 13.

One Win, Nine Years in the Making

It was only a wild-card victory.

That sentence sounds ridiculous when placed beside what it meant.

Dallas had not won a playoff game since the 1982 season.

Think about everything that had happened since then.

The final decline of Tom Landry's great era. The 3-13 season. Jerry Jones buying the franchise. Landry's dismissal. Jimmy Johnson arriving from Miami. The 1-15 season. The Herschel Walker trade. Draft picks. Trades. Cuts. More trades. More draft picks.

All of it had been leading somewhere.

For the first time, the destination was visible.

Then Detroit Happened

History would be much cleaner if Dallas had left Chicago and marched directly to a championship.

History is rarely that cooperative.

One week later, the Cowboys went to Detroit and were demolished 38-6.

Four turnovers. Six points. Season over.

So much for the fairy-tale ending.

Except the loss didn't erase what Chicago had established.

The Cowboys had crossed a line during the 1991 season. They weren't simply a rebuilding team anymore.

They were a dangerous one.

The Detroit loss showed them how far they still had to go.

The Chicago win showed them that getting there was possible.

What Nobody at Soldier Field Could See

This is where the Time Machine becomes unfair.

We know what happens next.

The people inside Soldier Field didn't.

They didn't know Dallas would go 13-3 the following season.

They didn't know Aikman would lead the Cowboys into Candlestick Park and beat San Francisco for the NFC Championship.

They didn't know Buffalo was waiting in Pasadena.

They didn't know Dallas would win three Super Bowls in four seasons.

They didn't know Aikman, Smith and Irvin would eventually become shorthand for an era.

On December 29, 1991, they were simply young players celebrating a 17-13 playoff win in Chicago.

That's what makes the moment worth revisiting.

Dynasties don't know they're dynasties when they're being built.

The Moment Progress Became Proof

Rebuilding stories are easy to tell backward.

Every draft pick looks intentional. Every trade looks brilliant. Every young player seems destined for greatness.

Living through one feels completely different.

There are losing seasons. Bad evaluations. Injuries. Close games. Doubt.

Eventually, if the plan is working, something has to happen that changes the question.

Before Chicago, the question surrounding Dallas was whether the rebuild was working.

After Chicago, the question was becoming something else:

How far could these Cowboys go?

The answer would arrive soon enough.

Back Through the Tunnel

The Cowboys walked out of Soldier Field that afternoon with nothing resembling a dynasty.

No Lombardi Trophy.

No championship parade.

No idea that three Super Bowl victories were waiting just beyond the horizon.

They had something smaller.

And maybe, at that moment, something more important.

Proof.

Proof that 1-15 hadn't been meaningless.

Proof that all those draft picks, trades, cuts and uncomfortable decisions were becoming a football team.

Proof that Dallas wasn't merely rebuilding anymore.

It was arriving.

The rest of the NFL would figure that out soon enough.

By Addie Whitfield

Editorial Voice, The Doomsday Legacy