Emmitt Smith told Michael Irvin before he ever played a game for the Dallas Cowboys that he would become the NFL’s all-time leading rusher, a goal Irvin initially found hard to believe. Irvin said Smith wanted rushing titles and MVPs before adding the career rushing mark, a milestone Smith reached in 2002 when he surpassed Walter Payton’s 16,726 yards.
Smith said he began visualizing big moments years earlier. Sitting in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 25, 1987, to watch Super Bowl XXI as the Gatorade National Player of the Year from Pensacola’s Escambia High School, he told ESPN he told his high school quarterback, Johnny Nichols, that he wanted to play in the Super Bowl and in that stadium. Six years later he did so in Pasadena with the Cowboys.
The Cowboys opened their three-championship run with a 52-17 victory over the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl XXVII. Smith’s first Super Bowl touchdown was a 10-yard run that pushed the lead to 45-17; Smith has said he set goals to score in the game’s biggest moments and wanted to be part of that scoring.
Smith added four more Super Bowl rushing touchdowns in Dallas’ later titles and was named Super Bowl XXVIII MVP after rushing for 132 yards and two touchdowns on 30 carries. His five rushing touchdowns remain the most by any player in Super Bowl history, and he is the only player to score two rushing touchdowns in two different Super Bowls (XXVIII and XXX). Only receiver Jerry Rice has more total Super Bowl touchdowns, with eight.
After becoming the NFL’s all-time leading rusher in 2002, Smith finished his career two seasons later with 18,355 rushing yards. The source lists Baltimore’s Derrick Henry (13,018) and Philadelphia’s Saquon Barkley (8,356) as the closest active rushers by yardage at the time.
Cowboys running back Javonte Williams met Smith for the first time at the team’s June mandatory minicamp. Williams noted Smith’s presence in the running back room at The Star—both in person and in a photo on the wall—and said Smith’s résumé speaks for itself.
