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Switching training camp sites from central Texas to the Pacific coast of California may not seem like an organizational move that would significantly impact a team's chances of reaching the Super Bowl, but for the Dallas Cowboys, it is symbolic of a franchise that lost its edge long ago.
The Cowboys won three Super Bowls while conducting training camp in Austin, Texas.
Over the last 17 seasons, Dallas has trained in the comfortable ocean breezes of Oxnard, California and has yet to advance past the divisional round of the playoffs.
The Dallas Super Bowl teams of the '90s sweltered throughout July and August at St. Edward's University in Austin, where head coach Jimmy Johnson would implore his players to "let the mind control the body, not the body control the mind."
The rationale for training in the unforgiving heat of the Texas state capital was that, if players could focus and execute in temperatures soaring well past 100 degrees in the summer, they could perform at the highest level late in the regular season and playoffs, when heat and humidity were really only a factor in one NFL city -- Miami.
The discipline that was instilled at St. Ed's was as great a factor in the three Super Bowls as talent, coaching and strategy.
Through vocal instruction and ironclad rules, Johnson demanded discipline on the practice fields, in the meeting rooms and in the weight room.
Discipline is an intangible that can be felt. It has a presence.
I experienced the influence of Johnson's disciplined culture when I was a training camp assistant with the Cowboys during the 1993 season, his last as head coach of the team.
Much like the rookies who were seeking a roster spot, the camp assistants knew that one botched assignment which caught Johnson's attention could be a ticket home.
At heart, Johnson was more of a motivator than a browbeater.
He devoted an entire chapter in his book, "Swagger," to a central pillar of his coaching philosophy known as the Pygmalion Effect.
Johnson describes it as "the self-fulfilling prophecy, the psychology of high expectations."
"Treat a person as he is, and he will remain as he is," Johnson explained. "Treat a person as if he were where he could be and should be, and he will become what he could be and should be."
Johnson's expectations for team success set a standard that everyone associated with the organization wanted to live up to.
A member of Johnson's administrative staff recalls that the head coach only broke with routine one time on the night before a game.
Instead of allowing the players to return to their hotel rooms after breakout sessions on the eve of Super Bowl XXVII against the Buffalo Bills, Johnson gathered the team and stated matter-of-factly that the Cowboys would win.
And then he methodically proceeded to explain why.
At some point, the ultimate goal of the organization seemed to change from dominating the NFL to developing into the world's most valuable sports team, which it has been the last two years at $8 billion and $9 billion, respectively.
This season, the Cowboys will attempt to shake the image of an undisciplined team that lacks leadership in the locker room and on the field.
On a daily basis, head coach Mike McCarthy should be lecturing his overpaid group of underachievers about where they could be and should be.
Jimmy Johnson surely would be.
Jim Caltagirone writes a monthly column for the Mirror.