Aikman, Cowboys are riding into the sunset
OCTOBER 17, 2000

Fan's View

Today, NFL fan Steve Schindler analyzes the struggling Cowboys and says Troy Aikman (and not the fans) will decide when it is time for him to step down.

I am as avid a Dallas Cowboy fan as you ever will find. I was born and raised on Cowboy beef on the hoof. I hollered at 'em when they ranged the green field that was the Cotton Bowl. I followed 'em to that newfangled Texas Stadium and sat in those skinny blue plastic chairs.

Don Meredith was a great talent at the time he took over the Cowboys at their birth. Perhaps only he really had the fortitude to put up with Tom Landry, the boo-birds and the punishment that was dealt out as the Cowboys shifted their way toward greatness. Unfortunately, Dandy Don didn't last long enough to enjoy it. The fans demanded that Craig Morton replace him, and he did. He retired a bitter man and to this day remains so toward the fans and the city that he sacrificed so much for.

Roger "The Dodger" Staubach was a navy man through college and after. He served his country, and he served our Cowboys well during his scrambling tenure with America's Team. Roger dug us out of so many holes you'd need a funeral home full of caretakers to count how many times he brought the Cowboys back from the dead. He brought Landry's Pokes two Super Bowl victories and was smart enough to call it quits before suffering too many brain-jarring hits.

Cowboy fans love their quarterbacks, and the ones you grew up with always seem to stick as your favorites. As much as I love to hold on to the memory of Meredith as the great Cowboy quarterback of my formative youth, I have to tip my hat to the man who led the Cowboys more championships than all the rest, Mr. Troy Aikman.

In our minds, the old guys just seemed to do it better. But Aikman came along and changed that for a lot of us. He took his licks early when Jimmy Johnson was molding this team into an NFL juggernaut. And when all the pieces were in place, no one could have led this perfect Dallas football specimen to its triple championship destiny better that the man who wore No. 8.

He was the consummate dropback quarterback, who also had the foot speed to escape and run when he had to. He had the presence of mind and the arm strength to get the ball to the best receiver available nearly every time. You didn't have to worry because his efficiency was scary. Scary to the other teams, that is. Year after year, Cowboy fans just knew that this is the way it would be, confident win after confident win. Man did we get spoiled.

It used to be when the Pokes got inside the 20-yard line, you just knew in your gut that somebody with a blue star on his helmet was going to end up in the end zone with the ball. It was automatic. It was Dallas Cowboy football. It was Troy Aikman football.

Well, those confident wins don't come nearly as often anymore. Every Cowboy contest seems to be a guessing game as to who is going to step up and make the big play to win the game -- or make the big bobble to lose it. Unfortunately, we've witnessed more bobbles than big plays this current season. And in our gut we just know that bobble is coming.

Up until now, I, along with a lot of Cowboy fans, have rationalized the plethora of problems as being primarily a lack of quality help for the talented core of superstars, Aikman and Emmitt Smith. But it now appears that age is finally beginning to take its toll on our heroes of yore, and we hope they will recognize the same before they tarnish the fond memories by trying to hang on one season too many.

No one ever wants to see a stumbling, stuttering Aikman whose brain has been traumatized by too many defensive clotheslines. An Emmitt paralyzed by knees that just won't work any more would break the heart of even the most fervent Green Bay Packer fan. And I think Dallas owner Jerry Jones and coach Dave Campo are torn with the same emotions as they stand behind their brave warriors who led them to such lofty heights in previous campaigns.

Campo has been in the Cowboy camp with Aikman since the beginning of the Jones era. And because he rode to the highest pinnacle with Troy when things were good, Campo will ride with his friend when the water is high and the current is deep. Campo won't take the reins from Aikman until Troy says it's time. Troy only wants what is best for the team and wants to be judged for his play just like any other player. And that's the way it should be.

Aikman is living on the emotion and loyalty that he has earned over the long haul, and I will not betray him or demand that he be cast aside. Every player has a bad game every now and then. For Aikman, bad games always have been an aberration. No one strives to be tied with Steve Pelluer for the Cowboy single-game interception record. No one in his right mind, that is. And Troy's mind has been knocked around a bit this season already.

I hope Aikman will know when it is time to make his emotional, hard-earned exit and enjoy the fruits of his gridiron labors, a new wife, a new home and children that will grow to admire him for the greatness he has achieved. No one can ever take that from you, Mr. Aikman. Nor can they take it from us.