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Cowboys QB
Troy Aikman
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IRVING, Texas — At times, Troy Aikman must feel abandoned. One by one, the guys
who had surrounded him during the good times in Dallas are falling by the wayside.
First there was TE Jay Novacek, Aikman’s favorite comfort receiver. Novacek was
forced into retirement after the 1996 season with back problems. Then there was OG Nate
Newton, whose age necessitated his departure as much as anything else. Then good buddy
Daryl Johnston, a most reliable fullback, was placed on injured reserve this season with a
bulging disc right beneath the one removed in a ’97 surgery. Johnston will likely
retire once the season is completed. And now the worst: WR Michael Irvin, recently placed
on injured reserve, has been advised by medical experts to retire once the season is over
because of cervical stenosis, a congenitally narrow spinal canal.
It is getting lonesome back there. Too many times Aikman has the ball but nowhere to go
with it.
"I’m still trying to come to terms (with the fact that) we don’t have
Jay Novacek," Aikman said in an attempt to deflect the disappointment of losing
through veiled humor. "I’m going to be 40 before I realize Michael is not
playing."
There is nothing humorous about the Cowboys’ inability to play with the same
offensive gusto that brought them three Super Bowl titles in four seasons during the
’90s. Owners of a 7-6 record, the Cowboys are now just another offense (ranked 19th
out of 31), having gone through three consecutive games (Weeks 11-13) without scoring more
than one offensive touchdown in any of the three. In Week 14, the Cowboys’ offense
put the ball in the endzone twice in a 20-10 win over the Eagles.
The Cowboys miss Irvin. More than that, Aikman misses Irvin. Aikman misses having a
go-to receiver, a guy he could count on during this glorious decade to not only be where
he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there, but to come through in the clutch
with the big play. And the two had things working early in the season, as Irvin caught
nine balls in the first three games, including three touchdown passes.
"Michael was the one guy on our (receiving corps) who had been in big games and
made big plays in those situations," Aikman said. "He did that in Washington
(Week One). But you wouldn’t expect things to shut down quite like they have."
Maybe more than Irvin’s output, Aikman misses the attention defenses were
affording Irvin. Aikman was licking his chops at all the single coverage the speedy Raghib
Ismail was receiving on the other side. While Irvin was putting up nice numbers, Ismail
had two 100-yard receiving efforts and two touchdowns in the first three games. But since
Irvin suffered the spinal contusion in Philadelphia during the fourth game of the season,
no wide receiver other than Ismail has caught a TD pass or compiled a 100-yard receiving
day. Ismail has added just one more performance over the century mark, gaining 125 yards
in a victory over Miami on Thanksgiving. You bet Aikman misses Irvin.
"It affects us not having Michael because he and I have been playing together for
11 years," Aikman said. "And when you don’t have that guy who you know what
he is going to do, then it affects you when you’re playing. You just don’t get
to play with guys as long as Michael and I have played."
Without Irvin, Aikman can’t survey the field and find a wide receiver who has been
on the team for more than two seasons. Ismail is new, Wane McGarity is a rookie, Jason
Tucker is in his first season, and only Ernie Mills and Jeff Ogden have been in Dallas for
as many as two seasons.
So, with an 81.4 passer rating and the Cowboys scoring no more than 10 points in three
of his 11 starts, is Aikman struggling? Or have the Cowboys failed to find enough bullets
to fill the chamber of their biggest gun?
Aikman and head coach-offensive coodinator Chan Gailey have been forced to deal with
the opposition’s realization that the Cowboys are deficient at wide receiver.
Defenses recognize Ismail’s game-breaking speed. So whom do you make sure is covered,
Ismail or Tucker? Precisely. Teams have worked hard to make doubly sure Ismail does not
single-handedly beat them and have been willing to take their chances with the various
other Cowboys receivers. And none of them has made the Ismail-conscious defenses pay. To
make matters worse, McGarity missed five starts with a dislocated shoulder and just last
week went on injured reserve with a broken finger. Mills missed the Week 13 game in New
England after straining a quadriceps muscle in warmups and was inactive last week. And
don’t forget James McKnight, who was lost for the season during training camp.
So technically, in that 13-6 loss to New England, when the Cowboys failed to score an
offensive touchdown for just the third time in two seasons, they were missing three of
their top four training-camp receivers. And the fifth, McGarity, was playing with a
protective harness on his shoulder. It’s one reason the Cowboys have started
incorporating CB Deion Sanders into the offense at wide receiver, something Gailey had
just begun to do last season before Sanders’ toe injury robbed Dallas of his
full-time services. Sanders caught two passes for 14 yards last weekend vs. the Eagles.
"It was a tremendous blow to us to lose Michael," Aikman said. "I think
there are probably people who underestimate that. I think there are probably people in the
organization who underestimate what it meant to lose Michael. It had a tremendous
impact."
So far, Aikman has played the good soldier, refusing to makes excuses for the
team’s wildly inconsistent offensive play or complain publicly about an offensive
system lacking in big-play threats.
But Aikman will say this: "We can’t continue down this road and say things
are OK, because it’s not OK."
And it’s even worse now, knowing there is little chance of Irvin ever coming back.
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