Eagles

Aikman: Big Changes Needed in ‘Big D’

By Bob Wankel

Published: Nov 6th, 2018 · 12:33 PM EST

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The Cowboys are 3-5 and have upcoming road games with the Eagles and Falcons before hosting the Redskins, Saints, and Eagles. That’s some tough sledding ahead for a team with the league’s 26th scoring offense and a defense that will be without starting linebacker Sean Lee for at least this week.

I mentioned earlier this morning FiveThirtyEight’s bleak outlook for the Cowboys which gives Dallas only a 10% chance to reach the postseason after eight games, but it bares repeating here. And, oh by the way, they no longer have a first round pick in the 2019 draft after trading it to Oakland in exchange for Amari Cooper. Things are looking up for the Cowboys, a franchise with an entire two playoff wins since the 1996 season.

Hey, I have an idea. Let’s check in with Jerry Jones:

Jerry Jones sums up Cowboys embarrassing night 🤣
pic.twitter.com/tj6UcRzafN

— John Clark (@JClarkNBCS) November 6, 2018

Tough scene.

While it’s easy for someone like me to pick on the Cowboys given my unrelenting hatred for them, things have gotten so bad in “Big D” that franchise icon Troy Aikman told 1310 The Ticket in a wide-ranging interview on Tuesday that it might be time for the team to make sweeping changes, ones that extend all the way to the top:

I’ve heard Jerry say, ‘OK, look, we’re going to do it differently. I’m going to do it differently.’ … But it’s the same. Nothing changes,” Aikman said. “And that to me is the bigger issue. … Yes, coaching is important, personnel, all those things are important, but how are you going about evaluating how you’re going about running the organization?

Whatever that looks like — and everyone has an opinion on what it does look like, but I’m not in the building. I have no idea. I talk to people. I talk to people who have been inside the building and have a pretty good understanding how things are run, and in a lot of ways there’s a lot of dysfunction and that has to change if this team is going to be able to compete on a consistent basis like the teams that you look to around the league that seemingly are in the hunt each and every year.

Translation: The owner needs to back down, they need new talent evaluators, and the head coach has to go.

Aikman’s criticism is particularly stinging given his long-standing friendship with Cowboys coach Jason Garrett.

For their part, Jones and the Cowboys don’t appear likely to take Aikman up on his advice:

When asked directly if there was any scenario in which he would make an in-season change at head coach with Jason Garrett, owner and general manager Jerry Jones said, "no." He said he did not anticipate any other changes on the staff the rest of the way either.

— Todd Archer (@toddarcher) November 6, 2018

And for that, the rest of the NFC East is thankful.