Dallas Cowboys VP: Aikman’s rip job deserved, but it’s not too late to save the season
Once again, Troy Aikman is unafraid to speak the truth about his former team, and everyone at The Star can hear him.
No national analyst carries as much weight as Aikman about the Dallas Cowboys.
“Of course we love Troy. Troy is obviously on the warpath now and we are all in the line of fire in terms of criticism, as we should be, from players to coaches, to the organization,” Cowboys vice president Stephen Jones said on Wednesday afternoon in Fort Worth. He was the featured speaker to a small group at the annual Goodfellows charity luncheon.
Aikman is not going to save this team this season, or any season moving forward.
The only people who can save the Dallas Cowboys are the players, head coach Jason Garrett, and the Joneses. And a very Merry Christmas to you.
“They have to get it together themselves. It’s too late in the game too make any sweeping changes that are going to change it,” Stephen said. “We have the right personnel. We have the right coaches. Everybody has to do their job.”
He also added this polite zinger: “I think our guys have to get back to the fundamentals to the way our coaches coach, and our coaches have to do a little bit better job of game-planning and putting our players in a better position to make plays in terms of pressure and things.”
THE COWBOYS LOOK TO THE RAVENS
With three games remaining in the season, and Garrett nearing the end of his five-year contract, the team is once again the rage of the talk circuit despite their perch atop the NFC East standings.
The Cowboys can make the playoffs, and are banking on the idea (prayer?) that a 9-7 team can win the Super Bowl.
“We can’t let these 11 days define us,” Stephen said of the team’s current three-game losing streak over an 11-day period. “We’ve had ups and downs in terms of why this is happening. We feel like we have a good football team. People say it’s hard to say you have the No. 1 offense in the NFL and a top 10 defense and we’re in the shape we’re in.
“We have to move past these 11 days where what could go wrong will go wrong. We seem to hit the panic button early, getting away from giving the ball to Ezekiel Elliott because you’re down two scores. This isn’t a roster where there is a lot back-biting going on or pointing fingers. We really, really think we have a solid staff that can coach these guys. The only way to change the narrative is to win a game.”
There are a limited number of examples of teams that have finished with an ish record that suddenly went on a playoff run to win the Super Bowl.
Stephen’s example is not the New York Giants’ 9-7 team that won the Super Bowl in 2007, but rather the 2012 Baltimore Ravens.
In 2012, the Ravens’ team president was Dick Cass, who was the Cowboys’ attorney when Jerry Jones bought the team in 1989.
That Ravens team opened at 9-2 before losing four of their final five games.
The finale to the regular season was so bad that Cass began to make a coaching list for Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti. The end of head coach John Harbaugh’s tenure was imminent.
Coincidence: The Ravens hired Harbaugh after the 2007 season because their top candidate, then Cowboys offensive coordinator Jason Garrett, passed.
“(Cass) said, ‘Our locker room was in shambles. (Linebacker) Ray Lewis, we all know Michael (Irvin) and Ray is just like Michael. He was raising all kinds of hell,’” Jones said. “He said, ‘We were a locker room divided. And then we won a game. Then we won another one. The defense came together.’ And then they won a Super Bowl.”
The Ravens won an AFC wild card game before winning two road playoff games to advance to the Super Bowl where they defeated the San Francisco 49ers, 34-31.
“It’s very doable,” Stephen said. “Like Jerry said, ‘It’s a little catching lightning in a bottle’ but it does happen. I think this group can do it.”
As far as specifics, Stephen pointed to the obvious suspects, beginning with a defense that has become offensive.
“There is no question we’ve got guys trying to do too much,” Stephen said. “This defense is predicated on everybody doing their jobs. ... Whenever one guy doesn’t do their job, the defense struggles. A guy like (defensive end) DeMarcus Lawrence is eaten up by this because he wants to win so bad. He starts to press.”
This is where the 2019 Dallas Cowboys sit, in first place in the division, and in criticism.
They earned both, and they are the only ones who can fix it.
