text: 1986 The 1986 campaign started optimistically, with highly regarded offensive coordinator Paul Hackett and Heisman Trophy-winning Herschel Walker having joined the team. The Cowboys ran their record to 6–2, but White's wrist was broken in a mid-season loss to the Giants, and the team only managed to win one of its final seven games. Dallas finished with a 7–9 record, ending the franchise's streak of 20 consecutive winning seasons that had dated back to its first-ever winning season in 1966. To this date, no other NFL team has successfully matched this feat.
  1987
  Dallas started the 1987 season 1–1 before NFL players went on strike and management responded by hiring replacement players. Schramm, having anticipated the strike, assembled one of the better replacement teams, which was soon bolstered by several starters who crossed the picket line (including Dorsett, Danny White, and Randy White). However, the "Counterfeit Cowboys" lost at home to a Redskins team composed entirely of replacement players. Once the strike ended, Dallas' regular squad lost six of its next eight games to finish 7–8.
  1988: Tom Landry's final season
  The Cowboys went into a free-fall in 1988. After starting the season 2–2, a last-second loss in New Orleans started a 10-game Cowboy losing streak. Among the few bright spots in the season were the team's first-round draft pick, wide receiver Michael Irvin (whom Schramm had predicted would spur the team's "return from the dead"), and a Week 15 victory against the Redskins in Washington, Tom Landry's last.
  1989: Troy Aikman and Jerry Jones arrives