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Saturday, August 30, 1997

Cowboys begin quest for 4th title

By DENNE H. FREEMAN / AP Sports Writer

IRVING, Texas (AP) -- This day, the Dallas Cowboys begin their quest for a fourth Super Bowl title in six seasons.

It was only two years ago that the Cowboys beat these Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl in Phoenix.

Since then the Cowboys' performance has suffered both on and off the field.

The Cowboys probably don't want to hear it but they're really not America's Team anymore. Their true fans support them no matter how down and dirty the off-field incidents become but the Green Bay Packers now have the majority of hearts.

From the Atlantic to the Pacific, the general theme from many non-Cowboy NFL fans is that the Cowboys are the team they would most like to see fail.

For the Cowboys, it's fast becoming an us against the world deal. It's one thing to win with class. It's another thing to have hooligans playing on your team and flaunting society's rules.

Owner Jerry Jones came up with the Calvin Hill hire and the image scrub brushing too late.

There's no way you can justify the tarnish on the team that wears the star from Michael Irvin's drug arrest, to Erik Williams incidents, to the Nate Newton's incidents, to Leon Lett's 13-game suspension, to Deion Sanders nasty divorce,

Jones was almost forced into the image retooling by one player alone, Troy Aikman.

Either Jones got with it or Troy was on down the road.

So, Jones got rid of several scapegoat players for visiting places he put off limits (it helped the salary cap at the same time) and did everything he could to plug the public relations disaster. It was like capping an oil well with a Dixie Cup.

This year's training camp was supposed to be a perfect example of how real Cowboys behave and we saw Barry Switzer try to carry a gun through an airport, Nate Newton get slapped with a rape allegation, Erik Williams face a paternity suit and kept getting a play by play on the Sanders divorce.

Then came the big Cowboys camp adios to Austin where they trashed the dorm, destroyed Jones' security cameras, and, among other disgusting items, urinated on the rugs.

This is not to suggest that any of the above will endanger the Cowboys on-the-field performances.

The offense looked 100 percent better in Austin than it had looked in a Dallas training camp since Jimmy Johnson's third year. Of course, the offense didn't have to go far. Placekicker Chris Boniol scored 42 percent of the club's points last year.

Defensively, coordinator Dave Campo has shown he can piece piece together an aggressive style of play. Dallas was No. 3 in defense in last year and will slide from that plateau but Cowboy haters may be disappointed that it's not going to be as far as they hope.

Special teams could be a problem with a new field goal kicker and a new punter.

But the Cowboys should do well enough with say a 10-6 season to make the playoffs and be a Super Bowl contender.

They'll have to do it with most of the football world hoping they will fail. A lot more people don't like the Cowboys than they used to.

Aikman has noticed it.

"Whatever our perception is it didn't happen overnight," Aikman said. "We have to try to right the ship. We've been a successful organization but we need to make it clear that certain things just aren't tolerated."

Well said but as Jones, Aikman and others involved in the Cowboys image scrubbing have found out, easier said than done.