Dallas week never easy for all-time Eagle Carmichael

It was 77 degrees and clear when Harold Carmichael completed his remarkable NFL career in 1984. The unseasonable lateOctober warmth was different, but not nearly as odd as the uniform the all-time Eagles great was rocking in his 13th and final season.

The almost forgotten story will bubble up again Sunday night when the Eagles entertain the Dallas Cowboys. The career that began with Carmichael coming off the board to the Eagles in the seventh round of the 1971 draft ended as a sub with the Cowboys.

“Some of my teammates that I played with still hate me for going down to Dallas,” the now 69-year-old Carmichael said. “And I really didn’t want to go. My wife and my agent wanted me to see what playing for another team was like. And I did. I only played two games there. A few weeks after that we were supposed to come to Philly to play the Eagles, and they released me. I wanted to hug (Tom) Landry. I said to myself I can’t go back to Philadelphia in a Cowboys uniform.”

Chances are Carmichael will bump into the quarterback on the other end of his 619th and final NFL reception Sunday at the Linc. That would be Danny White, who produced a 65-32 record including the playoffs in 13 seasons with the Cowboys. White does radio for the Cowboys. He had a feeling Carmichael was conflicted in those last days wearing a Cowboys uniform.

No longer a matchup nightmare, the 6-8, 225-pound, 35-year-old receiver had been cut by the Eagles and the New York Jets, the latter after a few weeks.

“Coming from Philadelphia, I mean, my gosh, you’re going to the arch-enemy,” White said. “Yeah, I’m sure he had to go through some angst on the plane ride from Philadelphia to Dallas for the first time. But Harold was a great guy from the day he arrived. I wished I had him earlier because he was talented and with his size, he was an easy guy to throw the ball to. I wondered about the numbers I might have had if he was one of my receivers. The size he had and the talent he had ... I remember being impressed with Harold and just the guy that he was and what a lucky guy (Ron) Jaworski was to have had him for all those years, because he was an easy guy to throw to.”

Carmichael’s last NFL catch was a perfect illustration of what White was speaking about. It was right before the two-minute warning, the Cowboys on the verge of exiting with a 22-3 win over the Indianapolis Colts when Carmichael heard what was left of the Texas Stadium crowd chanting a familiar name. He had been standing behind Landry, just as he’d stood behind head coaches as much as possible since he began playing football. Out of sight, is out of mind, you know.

“Landry,” Carmichael said with a southern drawl “says ‘Carmichael, get in the game.’ I’m in the game and Danny says, ‘Harold I’m going to throw this pass to you.’ He threw me about a 10-yard curl pattern, I caught it, they pulled me out of the game and that was the last time I ever played there. That was it.”

It was a seven-yard pass, but who’s counting?

“That’s maybe my claim to fame, is I threw him his last one,” White said. “So, that’s great. Especially the kind of guy Harold was. It was so easy to accept him into the locker room and onto the team because he didn’t come in with a lot of, I’m here and I’m going to save the day and make you guys better. It wasn’t that at all. He was real quiet and just went out and worked hard and I think we all really appreciated it. And very, very quickly, I don’t think it was more than a few days when he was 100 percent accepted by the locker room.”

Carmichael may have been accepted, but he never was quite comfortable in Dallas.

“I just love the city of Philadelphia,” Carmichael said. “I had a lot of relatives here in Philadelphia and over in New Jersey and this city embraced me, and I embraced this city. We had our ups and downs with people when I got booed. And yes, I got booed. And it was deserved. I was dropping passes and a lot of times we weren’t winning back then. But I haven’t been anywhere longer than in the Philadelphia area. And I was in Jacksonville (Fla.) until the age of 17 or 18.”