Sunday, August 18, 1996
Injury to Smith just compounds Cowboys' problems
By LANCE FLEMING
Reporter OnLine
(August 18, 1996)
IRVING - As if the Dallas Cowboys' offensive woes aren't bad
enough, now they're forced to wait and see if, and how long,
they'll be without their top gun.
Emmitt Smith's injury couldn't have come at a worse time for
the Cowboys, who are wafer thin at just about every position.
So Saturday night's preseason affair was no time to see Smith
go down, especially in his first action of the preseason.
Yet there Smith was, laying on the turf of Texas Stadium late
in the first half of the Cowboys' 20-3 loss to Denver, holding
his left leg after Erik Williams had dropped all of his 320-plus
pounds on it.
Smith walked off the field on his own, but later told Dallas
head coach Barry Switzer that it was the worst injury in terms
of pain that he's had in the NFL.
The Dallas running back, who just last Monday signed an eight-year,
$48 million contract, will undergo an MRI today, and the Cowboys
should have the results later this evening.
And with the Cowboys already without tight ends Jay Novacek and
Eric Bjornson and receiver Michael Irvin, don't think Switzer
and the rest of the Cowboys won't be on bended knee asking for
a little divine intervention.
"Without Jay and Michael and now Emmitt ...," Switzer
said, his voice trailing off. 'We'll just have to play the cards
we're dealt."
Those cards on Saturday didn't turn up many aces as the Dallas
first-team offense slogged its way through another sorry performance
in yet another bogus preseason scrum.
Dallas' first-team offense played the entire first half and produced
a measly three points and a paltry two first downs.
Troy Aikman completed 7 of 12 passes for 120 yards, but two of
his completions went for 91 yards combined - 52 to Kevin Williams
and 39 to Deion Sanders. Other than that, Aikman was just 5 of
10 for 29 yards.
In fact, outside those two big plays to the starting wide receivers,
the Cowboys collected just 38 yards on their other 20 first-half
plays.
"It's difficult right now to find any rhythm," Aikman
said. "With D.J. (Daryl Johnston) moving to tight end and
Larry Allen to tackle and George Hegamin moving in at guard,
we haven't had a chance to get people playing in the positions
where they're going to be playing in a few weeks."
The running game was worse than the passing game as Smith, Herschel
Walker and Sherman Williams combined to carry the ball 10 times
for a meager 9 yards. Four times the Cowboys faced third and
3 or less in the first half, and four times they failed to convert
the play into a first down.
Dallas was 0 for 6 on third-down conversions in the first half
and a remarkable 0 for 10 for the game.
Granted the Cowboys are missing several key components, but this
is clearly an offense that's still searching for some kind of
spark.
The offensive line has had trouble opening holes, the second
and third receivers haven't come up with the plays the Cowboys
need, and Aikman and Sanders still haven't been able to get things
going on a consistent basis.
"I think we'd all be foolish if we said we weren't concerned,"
Aikman said. "We are. We don't know from one day to the
next who's going to be available. We just had another up-and-down
performance."
And it certainly wasn't the kind of performance the Cowboys were
looking for in the fourth week of the preseason.
The next-to-last game is usually used as a dress performance
for the first regular season game, but if that was the dress
performance, the regular performances may not win rave reviews.
"I thought this was a very important week for us,"
Aikman said. "Obviously we didn't get the kind of performance
we wanted. I don't know what the feeling of the coaches is, but
I would think next week's game (against Houston in Orlando, Fla.)
would be important for us."
Important from the standpoint that the Cowboys must get something
going offensively if they want to be in decent position by the
time Irvin returns to the lineup on Oct. 13.
"Hey, we gotta start getting it together," offensive
tackle Nate Newton said. "We've been around the world and
back, but now that we're back in Dallas, we got two weeks to
get better.
"We need to get our guys in position and start working,"
he said. "We gotta get physical and nasty and start punching
people in the face.
"We gotta start doing what we do best and that's run the
ball and mix in the pass," Newton said.
"We've been worrying about what everybody's saying about
us and all, but what we need to do is start concentrating on
us and getting better."
They've got 15 days to do just that.
All content copyright 1996, The Abilene
Reporter-News and Reporter OnLine
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