IRVING, Texas -- It doesn't matter whether you ask Emmitt Smith, Troy Aikman or Michael Irvin. Each of those Hall of Fame players will tell you they wouldn't have had a dynamic offense if Norv Turner hadn't become the offensive coordinator before the 1991 season.
Turner took over the NFL's worst offense, a unit that averaged 255.1 yards and 15.2 points.
In his first year, the Dallas Cowboys averaged 365 yards and 22.8 points, and made the playoffs. A year later, the Cowboys won the Super Bowl with an offense that averaged 350.4 yards, 25.6 points and ranked fourth in the NFL.
Well, play-caller Scott Linehan is having a similar effect on the 2014 Cowboys' offense.
Obviously, the Cowboys weren't abject on offense when Linehan arrived, but they were inconsistent, error-prone and lacked an identity.
That's no longer the case. These days, the Cowboys have the NFL's best offense -- and it's not really debatable.
Denver, Indianapolis and a few others throw the ball better, but the Cowboys have the kind of offensive equilibrium most teams never achieve. The Cowboys lead the NFL in rushing, and Tony Romo is still on pace to pass for more than 4,000 yards.
Linehan, the Cowboys' third play-caller in the past three years, is a friend and mentor of head coach Jason Garrett and he grew up in the same timing-based passing offense that Garrett did.
Bill Callahan, who called plays much of last season, was schooled in the West Coast offense. Obviously, he understood Garrett's scheme, but he never quite found a consistent rhythm calling plays.
Garrett took over the play-calling at the end of last season, but after a third straight 8-8 season he wanted a play-caller who would help his offensive system grow and evolve, while creating some excitement for the players with new ideas.
Linehan has done that.
His philosophical approach to offense is simple, and he believes in putting the ball in the hands of his best players.
The Cowboys essentially run the same basic plays from a variety of formations and personnel groups, which creates the illusion of a complex, multi-faceted scheme.
Of the Cowboys' 461 plays this season. DeMarco Murray and Dez Bryant have been targeted on 67.6 percent of them, easily the league's highest ratio. Pittsburgh has the next highest percentage with 50 percent of the Steelers' 468 plays being directed toward running back Le'Veon Bell and receiver Antonio Brown.
"You call plays that are very familiar to the players, plays you feel comfortable about and plays they have a lot of history with," Linehan said, "and trust that Tony will find the guy who has the best matchup.
"If you keep repping plays, you get better at them. I've never felt like you get better using plays you run one or two times a season. The more you run similar plays or concepts -- whether it's done using this group or that group -- they're going to get better at the play and better at technique required to run those plays successfully."
Like Turner, Linehan has made a stud running back the epicenter of his offensive attack.
Turner had Smith; Linehan has Murray.
The year before Turner arrived, Smith gained 937 yards and averaged 15.6 carries as a rookie. Over the next three years, Smith averaged 1,587 yards and 346 carries.
In Murray's first three seasons, he averaged 894 yards and 191 carries, missing a total of 11 games. This season, Murray leads the league in rushing (913 yards) and carries (187).
"You could see certain games and situations last year where he was really productive," Linehan said. "You could tell that if you were able to get that week in and week out you could build on that.
"He's got a great style. He has that knack or 'it' factor that running backs have to have to get yards and rarely lose yards."
Murray also has a massive offensive line just like Smith had. The Cowboys ran the ball effectively last season as Murray gained 1,121 yards and averaged 5.2 per carry, but Garrett still didn't believe the Cowboys could run it whenever they needed to.
Neither did Romo.
That's why the Cowboys occasionally passed even when teams were in defensive fronts that dictated they should run the ball. The addition of Zack Martin in the first round of last season's NFL draft changed all that.
He gave the offensive line its third No.1 pick, and gave Garrett the confidence the Cowboys would be able to run it against eight-man fronts and in the fourth quarter to close out games.
And Garrett knew that if the Cowboys could control the line of scrimmage and run the ball, it would create play-action pass opportunities for Romo and one-on-one matchups for Bryant or Jason Witten when teams used an eighth defender to stop the run.
"'The No.1 thing we're going to do is get this running game like the old days,'" Linehan said Garrett told him when they discussed working together.
"In his mind, he was talking about the days when he was wearing a uniform. That was loud and clear."
The Cowboys had the pieces for a dynamic offense, but Linehan was the key just like Turner was during the glory days.
Now, we're just waiting to see how far this offense can carry the Cowboys.