SPORTS The Hundred-Yard Fishbowl

FIRST THERE WAS DANDY DON. THEN Roger the Dodger. Then the White Knight-or Danny “In Flight” White, depending on the season and the porousness of his offensive line. And as their quarterbacks went, so went the Cowboys, from kings of the known universe to bums who are the punch lines of bad jokes.

Those who pay attention to boring, mundane things like calendars know that it’s been almost a decade since the Cowboys came within a cheerleader’s eyelash of the Super Bowl. The team, St. Thomas of America’s Team, has gone the way of the V.A. Tittle Giants of the early Sixties and the Kenny Stabler Raiders of the mid-Seventies. At last, after twenty consecutive winning seasons (1966 to 1985), a record not just in football but in all major sports, the wheel has turned ’round for Dallas, as it does for them all. The immutable law that says the first shall be last, at least for a few seasons, has fallen on Dallas like Refrigerator Perry on a loose football.

But this is Dallas, the city that clutches winners and only winners to its glassy breast. No Amazin’ Mets, no lovable losers, will ever fill stadia here. No, we’re not going to sober up and accept a one-play-at-a-time climb to 3-13 and 5-11 and 8-whoopee-8 for a couple of years. Respectability? That’s for Green Bays. That’s for Phoenixes. Dallas is a phoenix that just won’t give itself up to the flames. And now the hope junkies have scored the purest stuff of dreams, a young man named Aikman.

All hail Troy, Golden Boy. It’s Year Two (II, in NFLese) for the already semi-legend who follows the near-legend who followed the legend. He’s back, he’s healthy, and it’s time, in the words of Rod Stewart, to let our inhibitions run wild.



TO TAKE A SEAT ON THE COW-boys’ Upward Bound express with Aikman requires courage, chutzpah, and a native ability to turn one’s gaze away from disturbing facts. Facts like the fact that, taken as a whole, the teams that helped Roger scramble to glory and helped Danny get close enough to blow it were manifestly superior to the ensemble of no-names now waiting in the wings, eager if not ready to follow Golden Troy into the limelight. Keep in mind that, taken at its most basic fundamentals, the modern game of football requires 1) somebody to throw, 2) somebody to throw to, and 3) somebody to keep the somebody who is throwing from getting killed in the act.

One out of three ain’t bad. If you’re a hitter in a baseball game.

Let nobody deny that in Troy Aikman, the Cowboys definitely have somebody to throw. Even during the 1-15 hell of ’89, Troy launched his rockets. He set an NFL rookie record with 379 yards passing at Phoenix, and club marks for passing yardage and touchdown passes by a rookie. A testament to Aikman’s footwork (or was it the ineffectiveness of the offensive line?): the young QB was the team’s second leading rusher, racking up 302 yards while scrambling out of the pocket. He made all of the major all-rookie teams.

Of course, he also flung his way into eighteen interceptions and was sacked nineteen times. It’s arguable that Aikman himself might have been on the hook for at least a couple of the Cowboys’ early losses. But once you get past twelve or so. who’s counting? Right now Troy’s young; he’s wet behind the ears. So for a while, Win City fans will listen to excuses for their young Galahad.

After all, the job of a pro quarterback is infinitely more difficult than that of a college QB. It’s like taking calculus after breezing through consumer math.

In the NFL, Aikman can face as many as twenty-five basic defenses on any unforgiving Sunday-with variations including an assortment of blitz packages and adjustments at the snap. And you’ve got about one-two-three seconds to mull the various data and implement a course of action before a frothing linebacker smashes your million-dollar kisser.

“Thai’s what separates the great quarterbacks from the guys who are just in the middle of the pack,” says Aikman.

“Thai’s what makes Joe Montana the great quarterback that he is. Teams were giving me a whole lot of looks last year rather than just playing what they were best at playing. Early on. it was very confusing. They were distributing all of the defenses, schemes, and coverages across the board.”

And the team was markedly deficient in Basic Element 2. somebody to throw to. Injuries to Michael Irvin and wideout Kelvin Martin wiped away experience and continuity on the receiving corps. While it is an exaggeration to say that you and I can outrun most of the Cowboy pass catchers, it’s not much of an exaggeration. No Bullet Bob Hayes, no jet-footed Jerry Rice, in this gang. Even healthy, this team lacks that deep threat that keeps safeties backpedaling in their nightmares.

So Troy Aikman has some valid ifs and buts. Still, his grace period will run out fast if this team starts in 1-15 form. If that happens, we may have to face the grimmest fact of all, a shot of straight Thorazine for hope junkies: a fine quarterback alone does not guarantee championships.

Remember Steve Bartkowski? The top draft pick in 1975, he endured a long career in Atlanta, surviving four head coaches- and retired with just three winning seasons. And Archie Manning of the New Orleans Saints was the prototype of the talented perennial loser, the field general who never had the troops he needed. With that in mind, being remembered as a notch or two below Staubach-or even White-might not be so bad. But Aikman heard the boo birds in his inaugural season, even hampered as he was by a broken finger that cost him five games. Would three, four, five seasons of sputtering mediocrity batter his spirit along with his body?

“I’m not real good at criticism,” admits Aikman, whose ability to think fast under fire and inspire his cohorts has already been challenged by some pressbox gurus.

“If I drop back and throw a stupid pass that was picked off, and the guy writes it, I can accept that. But when I get frustrated is when things are written, and they dont know all the facts. If 1 were a writer just watching the game,” says Aikman, “it would be real easy to say this guy didn’t do this, or this guy didn’t do that. Unless you’re really in with the team, knowing what the plans are, it’s really hard to know.”

There is a word for pro quarterbacks who feel this way about the hundred-yard fish-bowl: thin-skinned. And another word: unhappy. Such candor from the new kid is nice, but ignores another hard fact: there are eleven Cowboys on the field. There are hundreds of media mikados and thousands of fans, though not nearly as many as there were a few seasons back. And all of them are pretty sure they know the facts, Troy Boy, as well as you do. You might want to get a little better at criticism.

“The pressure for me comes from wanting to please everybody,” says Aikman. “If one guy were to tell me I was a bad player, that bothers me. The accolades-that he’s a good player, he’s the greatest or whatever-these just float right by me.

“But if someone says something negative, it drives me to be a better player, to show that 1 can make it in this league. To do the things they expect of me.”

That’s a tall order, Troy. They expect nothing less than the Super Bowl. Go for it.