Only two Pro Football Hall of Famers who spent the majority of their careers with the Cowboys are not in the team’s Ring of Honor.
Owner Jerry Jones went into the Pro Football of Fame in 2017. Former coach Jimmy Johnson will earn a spot in Canton in August.
Jones makes up the one-man committee who controls the inductees into the team’s Ring of Honor.
Johnson and Jones’ relationship ended contentiously when they agreed to split after the Cowboys repeated as Super Bowl championships in 1993. The Cowboys won a third Super Bowl in the decade in 1995 with Barry Switzer as the head coach.
So there has been speculation about whether Jones would put Johnson in the Ring of Honor, and if so, when?
Jones revealed Thursday that the Cowboys will not induct Johnson in the Ring of Honor in 2020 but sounds open to making it happen in the future.
“Right now, it’s not on my mind at all; it is not,” Jones said, via Calvin Watkins of the Dallas Morning News. “Regarding Jimmy, we have such a big year ahead of us with Jimmy, and his celebration. I want that to be the focus, period. If everybody says ‘Is that the right order of things?’ Well, coach [Tom] Landry was in the Hall of Fame before the Ring of Honor. Here we’ve got the two greatest coaches in the history of the Cowboys. So they can go in the same order.”
The last Ring of Honor inductee was Gil Brandt in 2018, with the team’s former player personnel director becoming the 22nd member.
Johnson’s induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame backs the organization in a corner. They cannot put Jones in the Ring of Honor without doing the same for Johnson.