Troy Aikman Reveals: Cowboys’ Jerry ‘Distractions’ Reason for Super Bowl Drought?

Troy Aikman Reveals: Dallas Cowboys’ Jerry Jones ‘Distractions’ Reason for Super Bowl Drought?

FRISCO - A few years ago, we coined the phrase "53 Brands.'' Our motivation was an attempt to get to the bottom of the ultimate problem with the Dallas Cowboys. If it's not talent or coaching or ownership backing ...

What is it?

Our theory: Because of the fact that from ownership on down, "America's Team'' is hyper-focused on marketing and promotion - we also coined the phrase, "Sometimes the Cowboys seem like a marketing firm that plays football on the side!'' - players are immersed in that.

Marketing. Promotion. Everywhere. And if the owner is all about that ... why shouldn't I, the player, be as well?

Enter Cowboys icon and broadcaster Troy Aikman, who identifies the conundrum from a first-hand perspective.

“In a lot of ways, there’s so many other things that are happening within the organization, it’s easy to get caught up in it,'' Aikman said. "There’s tours going around the building (here inside The Star) and there’s a lot of distractions, if you will, and I think it creates another layer that a head coach and a staff and players have to try to compartmentalize so that they can go and be the best football players they can be.”

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The "tours'' phenomenon is worthy of discussion; those occur year-'round here, and yet the Cowboys have gone 12-5 in each of the last three seasons, making the playoffs. Do the tours only distract the players for those five losing weeks, but aren't a problem in the 12 winning ones?

Obviously, we're talking about a more cumulative impact here: Podcasts, social media, nightclub hosting gigs ... and of course the glorification of All Things Cowboys.

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Aikman was posed a question using the word "entitlement.'' He didn't embrace that characterization, but ... 

“I don’t know about a 'sense of entitlement,” he said. “But when you play for the Cowboys, every national show leads off with the Cowboys. And there’s a lot of perks to playing for the Dallas Cowboys. There’s a lot of benefits to playing for the Dallas Cowboys. ...''

And there are a lot of challenges to it. ... again, in large part because of Jerry's desire to always keep Cowboys news "above the fold.''

Aikman has been wrongly portrayed as some sort of "enemy'' of Jones. That is wrong. He's expressed to us many times his "love'' of Jerry Jones and of the Cowboys. At the same time, he doesn't shy away from thinking through the theories.

“I mean, he’s the boss,” Aikman said. “So whatever is done, it’s because he’s OK with it. It just is what it is. I mean, it’s been that way. It’s always been that way. And whether or not that ultimately keeps this team from doing what they hope to do, I don’t know. Does (the "distraction issue'') just rear its head in January? I mean, why wasn’t it a problem during the regular season? So it’s a hard thing to kind of (wrap) your head around ...''