After seeing years of threads like this, I really think the ones who underrate him are younger fans who only remember his later years after all the injuries when he wasn't that good. If that's all you remember, and if you only looked at his numbers, then yeah, you'd probably think he wasn't that special.
Someone above even said the Garrett Thanksgiving Day win made them wonder if those teams could have done the same things with an average QB. Well, I remember the first time I went to training camp and saw them running drills up close. The difference between the two was incredible. Aikman was just jaw-droppingly good, with unbelievable velocity and pinpoint accuracy. Garrett in contrast floated the ball and still wasn't nearly as accurate. DBs had no chance on the reps Aikman ran, while they almost always made a play on the balls Garrett threw. Garrett truly looked like a high school QB compared to Aikman. It was literally like the difference between Larry Allen and David Arkin.
And that's not even considering the Aikman's incredibly demanding attitude of himself and everyone else. If he threw a pass that was excellent and an easy catch for the WR but that was a foot off from exactly where he wanted it, he was scowling and cursing himself. He'd also yell at the WRs if their routes weren't letter perfect, and he had the command to do so with authority. Of course Garrett never said anything, he just stepped in and did his reps. All anyone talks about on those teams is Irvin's leadership, but after seeing those practices, I think Aikman's demand for perfection was underrated.
