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Troy Aikman, Cowboys fight the clock, expectations

By Mike Fisher

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

(KRT)

IRVING, Texas - The Cowboys had needed every second of Monday night clock to beat the Philadelphia Eagles. Now, the Texas Stadium home dressing room was almost vacant, but with the midnight hour having arrived, a few Cowboys needed overtime just to muster the energy to get dressed.

Only three Cowboys players remained. Michael Irvin, age 31, couldn't walk. Daryl Johnston, age 31, couldn't breathe. And Troy Aikman, age 30, couldn't believe how ancient everyone suddenly seemed, and maybe couldn't help but wonder how long it would be before the midnight hour of this team would arrive.

"Look around the locker room," Aikman said, smiling. The Cowboys quarterback's mood was a mix: some euphoria from the difficult victory just past, some sobriety from the knowledge that future victories will be similarly difficult.

"You see the same faces, but that doesn't mean it's all the same players, the same talents. Even I'm getting old. ... We're not the team we've been in the past."

Don't worry, Cowboys followers. Immediately after issuing the aforementioned, Aikman's bones didn't turn to dust. Nor is this Troy Kenneth Aikman On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown. This isn't a precursor to a retirement announcement, or the jumping-off point for another wrasslin' match with coach Barry Switzer.

Instead, this is Aikman-as-analyst, Aikman-as-realist, Aikman-as-sage, Aikman as one of the few Cowboys folks - that is, players, fans and media - who understand that over are the days of this team dominating opponents simply because they are supposed to.

There is a long-held and often-stated thesis that these Aikman-Irvin-Emmitt-Deion-Woodson-Newton-Al len Cowboys are simply "soooooo" good, "soooooo" gifted, that their monikers are enough.

Actually, Aikman was smart enough to know this wasn't true long before he became a wizened sage.

"I can't stand when people talk about, 'Oh, you ought to win this game,' or 'You should win the next two games,' " Aikman used to preach when he was but a boy in 1990. "People who say things like that must've never played a sport in their lives. Do you know how hard it is to win one game? Against professional athletes? The best in the world? Do you know how hard it is to win one game, one half, one quarter, one single play?"

This is also an Aikman who might be finding some enjoyment in the challenge of being something less than the week-in, week-out overwhelming favorite this Team of The Decade once was. And an Aikman who is enough of a student of the game to know that the Cowboys' challenge is not unlike the task that faces Green Bay, San Francisco, Denver, New England and any other NFL teams with aspirations of surviving the next five months of football.

"I do look forward to the challenge; I do enjoy the challenge," says Aikman, who needed the Cowboys' final possession Monday to salvage an otherwise unimpressive night. "I don't give myself a bad grade for what happened for the first 58 minutes. I give myself a good grade because I, and everyone else out there, was pushing as hard as they could for 60 minutes."

What Aikman and the Cowboys accomplished Monday night was an exercise in innovation, something this quarterback and this group have rarely needed to rely on. There was Aikman, clock ticking away, checking through an assortment of blanketed receiving targets before rolling left, desperately weighing options - "I doubt seriously I was going to run it in from 14 yards, but I thought about it," he says - and then whipping a touchdown pass away from the momentum of his body and into the waiting hands of Anthony Miller.

"You want to make sure you don't get too stressed out, too panicky," Aikman reflected. "I read that 15 teams didn't score a touchdown last week. Hey, we're no different than anybody else."

A popular Tuesday morning quarterback question goes something like, "Are the Cowboys contenders, or can we expect to see more of what was witnessed Monday night?"

The answer, as the clock keeps ticking: Yes.

(c) 1997, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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