Troy Aikman Sounded Fed Up With the Cowboys After Their Brutal Loss to the Ravens
He didn’t hold back
It wasn’t too long ago that things were looking up for the Cowboys. Inspired by Mike McCarthy’s destruction of some watermelons, they beat the Vikings in Week 11 to improve to 3–7. It would have been a disaster in any other year, except every other team in the NFC East also had just three wins. Just take care of business in the division and a playoff berth was well within reach.
So much for that.
Dallas got wrecked by Washington in its game on Thanksgiving and then on Tuesday night got run over by the Ravens, 34–17. America’s Team is now 3–9, well behind Washington and the Giants (both 5–7) in the division race. The Cowboys are toast, headed for their first losing record since 2015—left to play out the rest of a meaningless season with a backup quarterback and an atrocious defense.
Cowboys legend Troy Aikman, calling the game on TV for Fox, sounded despondent when throwing to a commercial at the two-minute warning.
Since he’s on the top crew for the network that airs the NFC, Aikman is often in the booth for Cowboys games. He’s one of the biggest names in the history of that franchise and yet he never really sounds like a homer. In that clip, though, he definitely sounds like someone who cares about this team and is totally fed up with how things are going.
He’s right, of course. This is not a team that’s anywhere close to competing. The offense might have been better if not for injuries to Dak Prescott and a big chunk of the offensive line, but the defense is a complete abomination. It’s dead last in points allowed and rushing yards allowed on a per-game basis. Just look at this play from the Ravens game. Watch everyone bite on the fake to the running back, allowing Lamar Jackson to go right up the middle literally untouched for a touchdown.
The guy in the middle of the defense getting faked out of his shoes is former first-round pick Leighton Vander Esch, who was a Pro Bowler and Second-Team All-Pro as a rookie in 2018. He’s a good player, but everyone (himself included) screwed up that play so badly that he was thoroughly humiliated. A better coaching staff would have prepared the defense for that play. But as Aikman said, it’s not just one thing that needs fixing.
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