Dallas Cowboys legend Troy Aikman joined Sportsradio 96.7 FM/1310 The Ticket (KTCK-AM) on Thursday for his weekly appearance to discuss the Cowboys’ playoff loss, Mike McCarthy returning as head coach and more. Here are some of the highlights, slightly edited for clarity.
On the Cowboys’ wild card loss to the Packers…
Aikman: “Nobody saw what happened last week happening… Matt LaFleur, I think he’s really good. I’ve had games of his where they’ve been shorthanded and without some key players and he just has always been able to put together a game plan that gives them a chance. So I felt that he would have some plays, that would give him an opportunity to make some plays and score some points. And I thought they’d hang in there early on but then eventually, I just thought the floodgates would open up that in the second half, they just wouldn’t be able to sustain it. We all know how the game went.
Which, again, is what I have said throughout the year, and for the last few years, that, unfortunately for Dallas they’ve had these amazing regular seasons — and this isn’t just the last few years. It’s been going on a long time, when they put themselves in a great position, they just have not played their best football when the games have mattered most. It has gone on a while, it hasn’t mattered who has been the head coach, who has been the quarterback. They just have come up short. So it’s got to be pretty maddening.”
On Jerry Jones’ decision to bring Mike McCarthy back for his fifth season as head coach…
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Aikman: “As far as Jerry’s decision, I’m not surprised by that. Prior to that game, everyone would have said ‘wow, what an amazing year Dallas has had.’ Has there been some hiccups? No question. But Dak’s had a career year and the offense is scoring points, they haven’t lost a game at home, after the changes that were made with Mike taking over the play calling and then they had a bad game. Does one bad game warrant firing somebody? I’m not so sure it does, and Jerry obviously didn’t think so. It’s not easy to win 12 games in a season the way that they’ve done the last several years. They’ve come up short, but I’ve heard a lot of people talk about it and where do you go? Bill Belichick or this guy? What I point to is when Jason [Garrett] was let go and Mike was hired, Mike was hired because he was thought to have been a guy that won a Super Bowl before.
He comes in, he knows what it takes and he’s going to get the team over the top. Whoever would be hired now, it basically would be on the same premise and there are no guarantees. That’s the hard part for the Cowboys, and it has been for a while. And it was for me and our teams back when I was playing… The fans have heard about the Super Bowl aspirations forever, but to have to go through another full regular season to get back to the postseason just to see if whether or not the decision to keep the head coach or whatever they end up doing in other areas, whether that pays off, it makes for a long offseason and it makes for a really long regular season.”
Had Jerry Jones hired Bill Belichick, do you think it could’ve worked with those two personalities?
Aikman: “I think it would work. Those that don’t think it would work probably don’t know Jerry that well. I mean, he made it work with Bill Parcells. That was a different time and the motivation maybe was different than what it is now. But I don’t think Jerry gave up as much to lure Parcells or for Parcells to come — I don’t think he gave up as much as a lot of people think that he might have. Now what he did give up, it appeared, is that he wasn’t as visible with the media during the week or after the games. Would he have to give that up if he were to have interest in Bill Belichick? I don’t believe that he would. I think he could probably, pretty much, dictate the terms and bring Bill Belichick in. The reason I say that is, not to take anything away from Bill because we all know that he ran the show there in New England for a quarter of a century. I think Bill has two motivations right now. One is he wants the record and two is he wants to win a Super Bowl without Tom Brady as his quarterback. I think that he could accomplish both in Dallas. This team, as we know, it’s, it’s it’s plug and play. It’s ready to go, it’s ready to win a championship. They’ve got the roster, they’ve got the quarterback, they’ve got a lot of things in place. And I would have to believe that if you’re looking at the Dallas Cowboys compared to some other teams that he has interviewed at, you tell me which one you’d want to coach if you’re the head coach. I think this would be a no-brainer for Bill Belichick.”
On Dak Prescott’s struggles in the first half of playoff games…
Aikman: “Whether it’s the quarterback or whether it’s the other players, you have to play your best football in the biggest games. If you’re going to do what every team hopes to do and win a Super Bowl, your quarterback has to be a big reason why. I heard his comments after the game, he was talking about his mind was racing and his feet couldn’t keep up or something to that effect. I do know that when you get into a playoff atmosphere in a game, I’ve noticed that more so when I’ve been on the road, there are some games when you come out and you play and the game is comfortable right from the start. And there’s other games, when you get out there on the field and it feels like things are moving 1000 miles an hour, and that’s normal. I just always trusted that the game’s going to slow down. Eventually, these pass rushers, they’re going to tire, they’re not going to have near[ly] as much adrenaline. You’ve just got to hang in there in that early part. That’s what they’ve not been able to do. Now, is there more to that with Dak? I can’t really answer that. But what was strange to me, and I know they talked about it a little bit during the broadcast with CeeDee Lamb and the conversations that were going on on the sidelines and some of the looks that CeeDee was giving Dak or that Dak was giving CeeDee, but there was more to it than that.
“I went back and watched some of the game, some of the offense. There’s some concepts I do not like, the pick-six. I’d go round and round with Chan Gailey on that concept. If I were a quarterback, it wouldn’t be in the offense. So, he’s had two interceptions on that concept, one against San Francisco and then the pick-six this game… If you run three slants, and I would tell Chan this, I’d say ‘Chan, this is one of these plays that looks great on a whiteboard but play quarterback and tell me how it looks. You’ve got three steps to make a decision. You can’t read those things out the way that you think you can putting it on a whiteboard in the middle of the week. You’ve got to make a decision and if all three guys are running the exact same route, there’s no separation. I thought after the San Francisco game ‘OK, well, maybe they’ve learned,’ but they didn’t. And it was a big momentum shift, obviously. I mean, that was a real dagger. But anyway, I saw it early in the game. It just seemed like across the board defensively, that there was a body language — that like this is a playoff game. I mean, I wasn’t sure what was going on.”
More on the Cowboys’ playoff disappointment…
Aikman: “I really thought this was the year for them. I really did. In fact, I thought so so much that I haven’t even booked a vacation. My last game is this Saturday And I just knew that the Cowboys would be playing in San Francisco and the NFC Championship game and I said ‘aw, man. That’s what kicked off our run and I want to be there for that. I want to watch that game. So I was planning to go to San Francisco for the NFC championship game. So, probably like a lot of Cowboys fans, I’m scrambling trying to figure out what I’m going to do with myself now.”
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