Cowboys Diagnosis Their 'Big-Game' Illness; Now, What's The Cure?

Deion Sanders tells us these Cowboys are "chokers.'' Troy Aikman seems to be suggesting something similar. So if Dallas knows the illness ... what's the cure?

FRISCO - What has been the Dallas Cowboys biggest problem since winning their last Super Bowl in 1995? The legendary QB-turned-analyst Troy Aikman is offering a diagnosis as to why his former team hasn't returned to an NFC Championship Game since his days in uniform.

"The problem for them, and they don’t need me to tell them this, they just have not played their best football when the games have mattered the most,” Aikman said in a recent interview.

The Hall of Fame quarterback is quick to also note that the key people involved in running the franchise, from owner Jerry Jones and his front office to the players led by QB Dak Prescott, have done a "fantastic job'' building the Cowboys to this point. ... "this point'' being two straight seasons of 12-5 efforts plus two straight playoff appearances, including a win last year.

And yet Aikman's old team can't find a way to get over the hump. 

Deion Sanders, a legendary Cowboys contemporary of Aikman's, told CowboysSI.com flat-out that this Dallas group is guilty of being "chokers'' who "aren't built for the moment.'' 

Sanders told us: "Back when the Cowboys were the Cowboys, you never doubted if Troy Aikman was going to show up. Or the offensive line, Emmitt, Michael (Irvin), Moose (Daryl Johnston), (Charles) Haley, (Tony) Tolbert, (Leon) Lett, Deion or (Darren) Woodson. You never doubted if those guys were going to show up in the big games. 

"You don't know what you are going to get, nowadays. You really don't, and that's a problem." 

And Emmitt Smith, another legend who won three Super Bowls here, has offered a similar take.

"Our Dallas Cowboys — we keep beating ourselves,'' Smith has said. "The game of football is more than just talent. As we would say, the game is 10 percent physical and 90 percent mental.''

So talent isn't the issue, but something else is? They're "losers'' and "chokers''? It's something intellectual? Psychological? Is that thinking too deeply here?

Most football-smart observers view the Cowboys roster last season as one of the best in the league. That was largely true in 2021. It is something that holds true for this coming season. Some might say it's been true in other seasons, too, over the course of this 28-year Super Bowl drought.

But even if you have a talented roster with a fine coaching staff, sometimes the timing isn't right. Could that be it? "Timing''?

The Cowboys dealt with major injuries to key contributors throughout the 2022 season, with left tackle Tyron Smith and quarterback Dak Prescott among others. Is that "bad timing''? "Bad luck''? Additionally, Dallas' top competitors, the Philadelphia Eagles, made an impressive run while staying largely healthy.

That Eagles performance resulted in the Cowboys finishing second in the NFC East, forcing them to face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on the road in the Wild Card before getting a rematch with the San Francisco 49ers, a team that has been their roadblock in the last two seasons.

Is that "timing''? Or just an "excuse,'' because in the end, either you're good enough or you ain't.

If we believe that Deion and Emmitt's charges are too extreme, and we stick with Dr. Aikman, that it's simply about "playing your best in the biggest games,'' we are left with a possible prognosis.

Aikman's Cowboys in his rookie season of 1989 were the NFL's worst team. By 1990, they were playoff contenders right to the final game of the season, with Jimmy Johnson winning Coach of the Year for a 7-9 record. In 1991, Dallas went to the playoffs and won a game.

And in 1992? The Cowboys of that time will tell you they only suspected they were good. Troy and Johnston and Lett and "that offensive line'' made up of spare parts? They had no idea they'd win a Super Bowl, let alone become dynastic enough to win three in four years - and it's revisionist history to suggest otherwise, even as we now believe that era of Cowboys might represent the greatest roster ever assembled.

But once they accomplished something big - one time? The locker room was overflowing with self-belief, with a willingness to rely on one another, and with a sort of almost irrational confidence.

And that is probably the only cure for what ails Dallas. There are three ways to teach: I can tell you. I can show you. Or you can do. This era's edition of the Cowboys, which has taken steps up in the last two seasons, is now similar to where Dallas was entering 1992. That group was aware that it'd been 15 years since this franchise went to a Super Bowl, but was not aware that it would be the bunch to end that drought ...

Until they did so. That's where today's Dallas Cowboys are. There is no "jinx'' and there is no "choke.'' There is little use in "telling'' or "showing.'' There is just "doing.''

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