Video: Aikman on why he left the Cowboys - never hear this before

[buybuydandavis]

 

[shabazz]

He saw no future success with the Cowboys so he took his ball and went home .

Good Interview

 

[pansophy]

That also explains some of his Cowboys commentary when calling games. He still sees the kinds of things that cause him to retire in the first place.

 

[Jstopper]

He saw no future success with the Cowboys so he took his ball and went home .

Good Interview

All that leadership and winning went away once the salary cap couldn’t keep him surrounded by hall of famers on both sides of the ball

 

[BoysForLife]

He saw no future success with the Cowboys so he took his ball and went home .

Good Interview

What I'm hearing is "I sacrificed sweat and blood as a part of building what we built from the ground up, and seeing it come to ruin without having any chance of doing anything to right the ship is intolerable to me"

Basically--reading between the lines--Jerry and his ego were changing the culture that Jimmy and the Triplets had built and Troy couldn't abide by that.
he could sweat through the 1-15 debacle because he sensed what was being built and as tough as it was he knew there were brighter days ahead. But he could not sweat the decline knowing there was no chance of righting the ship under current management.

I don't want to put words in his mouth, but when I hear Aikman in this clip, that's what I'm hearing. In a general sense that mirrors what you said but I think it's a bit more complicated imo.

 

[jblaze2004]

I wonder if that's why he seem to be against the Cowboys whenever he calls a game. I hate listening to Troy when he calls the Cowboys games.

 

[shabazz]

What I'm hearing is "I sacrificed sweat and blood as a part of building what we built from the ground up, and seeing it come to ruin without having any chance of doing anything to right the ship is intolerable to me"

Basically--reading between the lines--Jerry and his ego were changing the culture that Jimmy and the Triplets had built and Troy couldn't abide by that.
he could sweat through the 1-15 debacle because he sensed what was being built and as tough as it was he knew there were brighter days ahead. But he could not sweat the decline knowing there was no chance of righting the ship under current management.

I don't want to put words in his mouth, but when I hear Aikman in this clip, that's what I'm hearing. In a general sense that mirrors what you said but I think it's a bit more complicated imo.

I'm just a Cliff Notes guy, lol

 

[Swanny]

Didn't watch the video. But in reality his brain was toast if he took another hard hit. He had to get out of football.

 

[Cowboys5217]

All that leadership and winning went away once the salary cap couldn’t keep him surrounded by hall of famers on both sides of the ball

Nope, it ended when Jimmy left.

 

[The Quest for Six]

Around the same time Jerry thought he was a real GM and could evaluate players.....

 

[The Quest for Six]

Nope, it ended when Jimmy left.

yup, when the Captain(Jimmy) left the ship, it began taking on water and it's been taking on water ever since..

 

[Calvin2Tony2Emmitt2Julius]

What A Puss move. Throw the whole organization under the Bus. Troy never was one of My faves but this definitely, Knocks him off my list a favorite Cowboys.

Where's the loyalty ? Where's having your brother's (His words Not mine) Back ? Self serving hypocrite.

Way to go out like a Sucker !!!!!!!

 

[TwoCentPlain]

Aikman grabbed every single penny he could and did not care one bit if the team had less to pay other players.

 

[Jstopper]

Nope, it ended when Jimmy left.

Nah I’m calling Troy a puss for that. It’s all good when we’re flying high winning rings and he’s surrounded by the best team money could buy. Then he wants to dip out because he “didn’t see a way forward”. Clown business

 

[Jumbo075]

What I heard was that Aikman didn’t want to submit to another head coach, but wanted a say so in how the team was run. This fits right in with the immediate contemporary reports that Aikman hated Chan Gailey.

This is why I’ve always contended that Aikman’s complaints about the lack of discipline under Switzer have to be taken with a grain of salt. He claimed to want a more authoritative leader like Jimmy Johnson, but when Jerry gave him Gailey, Aikman rebelled against him.

I’m not blaming Aikman. I’m just saying he complained about Switzer being too lenient, but that leniency allowed Aikman to have a big say so. That same leniency was taken advantage of by other players to act badly, but both the self-disciplined and the unselfish-disciplined players got the same leniency. Aikman wanted leniency for himself, but not other players. I don’t believe that would have worked, and if Switzer did that, I don’t think they win SB XXX.

But when Aikman lost his say so because a strict coach was hired to corral the wild players, Aikman then complained about not having a say so. To this day, I don’t think Aikman sees the conflict in how he reacted to both Switzer’s leniency and Gailey’s strictness. I also don’t think Aikman and the other SB veterans would have reacted kindly to another disciplinarian not named Jimmy Johnson after Jimmy left.

Ultimately, it was a no win situation for Jerry Jones. He tried to put on a good public face, and put lipstick on the pig. But the entire team wouldn’t accept another disciplinarian after Jimmy. So the best Jerry could do was hire someone willing to have a light touch and let the veterans run the team - which he did when he hired Switzer.

Remember that Switzer’s initial reaction was to chastise both Jimmy and Jerry for not working it out between themselves. But Switzer was willing to come in with a light touch, and dang near led the team to two more SB wins - if not for Aikman crapping himself with three interceptions in the first quarter of the Championship game in 1994, and for a non-PI call which should have gone against Deion Sanders that game.

The problem was the split in the attitudes of the veterans. On the one hand, you have the scandalous behavior of even some of the HOF players like Irvin and Haley. On the other hand, players like Aikman longed for the strong hand of Johnson, but in actuality wouldn’t accept it from anyone but Johnson himself.

Bottom line: Aikman wants to maintain his righteous indignation, but fails to examine how his own responses to Switzer and then Gailey conflict with that righteous indignation.

That not all that unusual. Many people fail to see their own inconsistencies. It’s a common issue we all struggle with.

Ultimately, Aikman and all the other players never got over the split between Jimmy and Jerry, and it seems like Aikman is still not over it. You see the same dynamic in children of divorce. Some get over it. Some never do. And some continue to blame one parent above the other. It seems like Aikman (and many fans) continue to blame Jerry more than Jimmy. I think Jimmy AND Jerry are both 100% culpable.

In the end, Aikman wanted out. No problem. He got out. And just like Jerry paid off Jimmy to leave, Jerry gave Aikman a big bonus as he walked out the door also.

Jerry paid them off AND still gets most of the blame. But Jerry also still reaps the rewards, which I think Aikman highly resents.

The final epitaph. After Gailey was fired, and all the salary cap stuff was paid off, Jerry hired another disciplinarian to run the team - Bill Parcells. The very first thing Bill did was run off the one remaining big star from the Jimmy Johnson era - Emmitt Smith. So even Bill knew that none of Jimmy’s stars were going to accept another strong hand.

That’s the sad story of divorce.

 

[buybuydandavis]

- if not for Aikman crapping himself with three interceptions in the first quarter of the Championship game in 1994, and for a non-PI call which should have gone against Deion Sanders that game.

It wasn't the non-PI call that killed us.
It was the Personal Foul 15 yards that Bozo the Coach tacked onto it.

 

[OmerV]

Aikman grabbed every single penny he could and did not care one bit if the team had less to pay other players.

There was no salary cap the first 5 or 6 years Aikman played, so paying players wasn't restricted. But even after salary cap started the Cowboys were paying Aikman, Emmitt, Irving, Allen, Deion, Haley & Woodson, so it's not as if the Cowboys were unable to keep top players. It was guys like Gesek, Gogan, Larry Brown, Dixon Edwards, Kenny Gant etc that other teams were overpaying for that Dallas felt like it didn't make sense to get in a bidding war over.

 

[BoysForLife]

I'm just a Cliff Notes guy, lol

 

[MountaineerCowboy]

What A Puss move. Throw the whole organization under the Bus. Troy never was one of My faves but this definitely, Knocks him off my list a favorite Cowboys.

Where's the loyalty ? Where's having your brother's (His words Not mine) Back ? Self serving hypocrite.

Way to go out like a Sucker !!!!!!!

You forgot "WINNER" in all that name calling.

 

[lurkercowboy]

Didn't watch the video. But in reality his brain was toast if he took another hard hit. He had to get out of football.

At the end, Aikman could not handle the normal punishment an NFL qb takes. I think in his mind he is in denial a little bit about his physical condition.