Cowboys’ flashy Netflix premiere was a taste of the 90s with a dash of Micah Parsons drama

LOS ANGELES — The Netflix premiere was minutes away from beginning, and the night’s biggest star was still on the blue carpet. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones had already done numerous interviews as he made his way toward the entrance of the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. He had already taken plenty of photos. He spent roughly 45 minutes shaking hands and doing what stars do.

Then, despite the urging of urgent Netflix staffers wishing to whisk him away to the show, Jones made time to speak with the local media. He had already walked the carpet and now it was time to quickly walk down memory lane.

“I relived some of those when looking at this,” Jones said about the filming and viewing process of his documentary. “And I realized just exactly what good things happened to us. I looked at the contributions of so many people and what made this thing go.”

Then he talked about one moment in particular that was a catalyst for the three Super Bowls they would win in the 1990s.

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“That Herschel Walker trade was the biggest miracle to come down the pike,” Jones said, “because it gave us the ability to cut and shoot. I took two of those picks … and traded for Alonzo Highsmith and he never ran a down. It caused you to have a going-to-Las Vegas, throw-the-dice attitude, which you kind of need some of if you’re building a team.”

Fittingly, as the Netflix documentary of Jones is similarly titled, Jones needed to gamble to have success with his Cowboys.

Now, as the team prepares for the 30th anniversary of their last Super Bowl — and their last run to the conference title game, even — it’s hard to not feel like memory lane is hanging over them, too.

For the record: one of those Cowboys, Hall of Famer Michael Irvin, disagreed with that sentiment from the blue carpet on Monday night.

“I don’t buy any of that hanging over,” Irvin said.

“I remember even when I was playing people would ask that same question about the ’70s. I don’t subscribe to that notion … really, we’re stacking on. I just want them to stack on. That’s it.”

How the Cowboys go about doing that remains an elusive mystery. The stars of Monday’s Netflix premiere did offer some clues, however.

“I don’t care what anybody says: there are times when we’ve played football where I think this team has the talent to get to a Super Bowl,” Irvin said. “Now, do they have the unity? That’s what they’ve been missing. Hopefully they can figure that part out.”

The Cowboys of the ’90s did. Jones has even cited the time when the Cowboys didn’t have Hall of Fame running back Emmitt Smith for two games amidst a contract negotiation and how the Cowboys still won the Super Bowl that year. He’s cited it often this camp as the Cowboys deal with star pass rusher Micah Parsons, who’s issued a trade request while he doesn’t practice.

While the teams of the ’90s hang over the franchise, the negotiations with Parsons hold over the current team.

They even held over Monday’s premiere to a certain extent.

Smith said on Monday that he wanted to “set the record straight” about his negotiation with the Cowboys. He said it should’ve never been called a “holdout,” in his words, because he was a free agent and the Cowboys had negotiating rights of him.

“Let’s be honest: there’s not a distinct difference between the two,” Smith said about the comparisons between his negotiations and the current negotiations with Parsons. “I didn’t sign until two games in. That’s the only difference. It is what it is. I just hope Parsons get his deal done, because for me, it’s more important to have all this business stuff behind so the team itself can start to do the things they came to do. They came to training camp to work on what? Coming together as a team, forging ahead as a brotherhood, building the chemistry that they need to be. All the other distractions need to be gone.”

Smith agreed that negotiations with star players can be a distraction to the rest of the locker room, too.

“They have to answer these questions every day,” Smith said. “So they have to deal with something that has nothing to do with the game of football. You see what I’m saying? It’s a distraction. These questions right now have nothing to do with this movie tonight. It’s a distraction. It’s what you want to talk about; it’s not really why I’m here.”

And plenty of people showed up on Monday for that exact reason. Plenty of former Cowboys were there. So was Al Michaels and Marshawn Lynch, among others.

And of course there was the star: the titled gambler of the Cowboys. Plenty of people talked extensively about how the Cowboys became a dynasty. No one perhaps talked more and was followed around the last couple years than Jones himself.

There were lessons to take away about how that team came together. Perhaps no one knows that better than the current owner and general manager of that same franchise.

Lights, camera, action: See photos from star-studded Hollywood premiere of Cowboys’ upcoming Netflix docuseries

Former Dallas Cowboys Pro Football Hall of Famers Michael Irvin (left) and Emmitt Smith... View Gallery Full coverage: Netflix docuseries featuring Cowboys, Jerry Jones gets Hollywood premiere