As player: James William Johnson (born July 16, 1943) is an American sports analyst and former football coach.

Following the college championship, Johnson succeeded original Cowboys head coach Tom Landry in 1989, a position that saw him help rebuild the team back to winning form.

Holtz wanted to retain Johnson on his staff and offered him a position, but Jimmy decided to move on and amicably parted company with his alma mater.

There, he coached Randy Holloway, David Logan, Al Chesley, J. C. Wilson, Rickey Jackson, Jimbo Covert and Hugh Green, and was introduced to Pitt alumnus and assistant coach Dave Wannstedt, who later teamed up with Johnson again at the University of Miami, Oklahoma State, the Cowboys, and the Dolphins.

His good friend Larry Lacewell told Johnson that if he wanted to win a national championship and eventually coach in the NFL, he had to take the Miami job.

Upset that Frank Broyles (who by this time was the Arkansas athletic director) made no mention of this during the interview, Jimmy distanced himself from his alma mater.

Johnson started with a shaky 8–5 record his first season, which included a game in which Johnson's Hurricanes blew a 31–0 halftime lead in a loss to Maryland with Frank Reich as its QB, and also included a 47–45 loss to Boston College immortalized by Doug Flutie's "Hail Mary" touchdown pass on the game's final play.

Johnson created a free-wheeling atmosphere where he allowed, and at times encouraged, his players to showboat, trash-talk, and run up the score.

The criticism they received from other teams caused the media to deem them the "Bad Boys of College Football", a moniker Johnson openly accepted.

Johnson's Hurricanes posted the school's first undefeated regular season in 1986, only to lose the Fiesta Bowl and the national championship to #2-ranked Penn State.

Kosar graduated with honors, a year ahead of his freshman class in 1985, with a dual major in finance and economics and subsequently entered the NFL's supplemental draft.

Johnson had an ability to find talent in the draft, make savvy trades (namely, the trade of Herschel Walker, which yielded six high draft picks and a number of players from the Minnesota Vikings), and by signing quality players such as Jay Novacek as free agents in the age before the NFL had imposed a salary cap.

Johnson also had a record of 24–1 when running back Emmitt Smith ran for 100 yards or more in a regular-season game, and 5–0 in the postseason, winning two Super Bowls.

Jimmy Johnson and Jerry Jones mutually agreed to split due largely to their growing inability to work together.

An incident happened in December 1993, when the Cowboys were getting ready to play the Giants for the NFC East title, where Johnson had said he was interested in becoming head coach of the expansion Jacksonville Jaguars.

Jones then hired another former Arkansas player, former University of Oklahoma head coach Barry Switzer, and the Cowboys won Super Bowl XXX two seasons after Johnson's departure.

Notable members on the winning team included Johnson holdovers Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Michael Irvin, and Super Bowl XXX MVP Larry Brown.

[4] When asked in the summer of 2014 why Johnson was not in the ring of honor despite his two Super Bowl victories as coach of the Cowboys, Jones stated: "Disloyalty ...

On August 5, 2021, during the 2021 Hall of Fame Game broadcast on Fox, Jerry Jones announced that Johnson would be inducted in the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor.

After working as a television analyst with Fox Sports for two years and briefly flirting with an offer for the head-coaching job of the Philadelphia Eagles in 1994,[8] Johnson joined the Miami Dolphins in 1996, replacing head coach Don Shula, who retired at the end of the 1995 season.

"[11] Johnson inherited one of the NFL's best offenses, led by Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino; the defense was considered mediocre, though it was ranked 10th in fewest points allowed in 1995.

With complete control over personnel decisions, Johnson and his staff signed several excellent defensive players, drafting future Hall of Famers Jason Taylor and Zach Thomas, and Pro Bowlers Sam Madison, and Patrick Surtain.

In 1998, the Dolphins finished 10–6 with the league's best defense, defeated the Buffalo Bills in the wildcard playoffs, then were crushed 38–3 by the Denver Broncos in the divisional round.

In the face of Super Bowl expectations, the Dolphins went out and won four of their first five games, with the loss to Buffalo on Monday Night Football leaving Johnson to criticize Marino publicly for his play.

Marino suffered a bone spur in his back that knocked him out until Thanksgiving, leaving the team in the hands of rookie Damon Huard.

He has been assigned as a studio analyst for Fox's coverage of the Bowl Championship Series in January with Chris Rose as the host, and also pens a column on Foxsports.com.

[19] He was also involved in a South Florida-based scam called The Leading Edge that purported to feature businesses on an "educational" "interstitial" program by that name that would air on public television.

Johnson filmed the TV spots, in the style of an infomercial, and businesses were pitched on the program using these clips, which appeared on the website.

[21] Johnson, the oldest contestant of the season, was part of the Espada tribe, made up entirely of people aged 40 and older.