Larry Brown Sports

Former Cowboys legend Troy Aikman questioned the passion of Dallas sports, accusing them of being front-runners.

Aikman was appearing on “The Musers” on 1310 The Ticket in Dallas last Thursday when he questioned the fans. His comments seemed to be a response to the Cowboys’ 34-18 home loss to the Bears a few days earlier.

After the game, Chicago receiver Brandon Marshall said the environment at Cowboys Stadium “felt like a home game” for the Bears. Aikman agrees that the Cowboys don’t have a great home field advantage.

“I don’t think Dallas has ever really had a great home field advantage,” Aikman said, via The Dallas Morning News. “What I’ve heard is that, ‘Wow, they really lost home field advantage when they left Texas Stadium.’ Texas Stadium really wasn’t that different. Having played playoff games in Texas Stadium, that stadium was rocking, it was great. … But when we would play in Philadelphia, New York and walk out of the tunnel, I would have to be yelling at the top of my lungs for guys to hear me. And you get on the plane for the flight home and your head would be pounding, you wouldn’t have a voice, and that’s just the way that it was. There was no way you could go down there near the goal line and use hard count in an opposing stadium. And yet in Texas Stadium, teams did it all the time.”

Aikman played 93 games at Texas Stadium during his Hall of Fame career, so he has plenty of experience playing in front of Dallas sports fans. He gave the following assessment of them.

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Any quarterback who has some success playing for the Dallas Cowboys is bound to be compared to Troy Aikman. When you lead your team to multiple Super Bowls, you instantly become the benchmark for success for any of your successors. When Aikman said last month that Tony Romo is a better quarterback than he was, most of us thought he was insane. Apparently most of us includes Romo himself.

“I think first, whenever Troy Aikman says anything in a positive way about you as a quarterback, it makes you feel good,” Romo told Ian Rapoport of NFL.com. “For me, it just means that Troy thinks that you’re doing something right, and I think that’s exciting from a quarterback’s perspective, coming from a guy who’s one of the greatest players ever to play in the game.

“But I don’t think I belong in that discussion, so Troy I think was being nice. But definitely I’m not going to wash it away and say it doesn’t matter because it makes me feel good, so I’m going to take that. But I do think that there’s no discussion. I think Troy Aikman is on his own mountaintop by himself.”

Aikman was obviously just being modest and was also trying to give Romo a confidence boost that he oftentimes looks like he desperately needs. As far as Cowboys legends are concerned, Aikman stands in a class of his own. He played for some of Jerry Jones’ best teams of all time, and unless Romo wins a Super Bowl his name won’t even be mumbled in the same sentence as Aikman’s at the end of Tony’s career.

It’s only March, but we at LBS are already announcing Troy Aikman as a finalist for most modest statement of the year in 2012. For those of you who are unfamiliar with his resume, Aikman was a six-time Pro Bowler who led the Dallas Cowboys to three Super Bowl championships in the early ’90s. With Aikman under center, the Cowboys were a team feared by the entire NFL and considered one of the greatest of all time. Despite that, Aikman somehow expects us to believe that he truly thinks Tony Romo is a better quarterback than he was.

“I think Tony already is a better quarterback than I was,” Aikman said in an interview with the Brownsville Herald. “I know how quarterbacks are judged but as far as his play-making ability and the things that he is capable of doing, he is a far more athletic quarterback, capable of making more plays than I ever was able to. He has a good team around him and hopefully, and I believe this will happen, I believe that he will win a Super Bowl before he is done playing.”

Yes, Romo’s stats are more impressive. Aikman’s threw for only 3,445 yards and 23 touchdowns during his best season in 1992, while Romo’s best season featured 4,211 yards and 36 touchdowns. That being said, we all know the NFL is a passing league now and relied on the run back in the ’90s. The difference between Aikman and Romo is Aikman won three rings in his first six years as a full-time starter. Romo has none.

You can argue that Aikman was surrounded with better players, but we all know Romo has single-handedly choked games away for the Cowboys. When called upon, Aikman did the opposite. When Aikman was running the offense, you can guarantee there wasn’t a guy in the locker room who didn’t know who the team’s leaders were. The same can’t be said for Romo’s Cowboys.

Romo believes this Cowboys team will win a Super Bowl and Aikman may actually believe that too. However, Troy can easily avoid being the Joe Namath of the Cowboys without saying something absurd like Romo is a better quarterback than he was.

H/T Pro Football Talk

Player safety continues to be a growing issue in football, and Troy Aikman thinks it could wind up hurting the NFL if the league doesn’t proceed appropriately.

The Hall of Fame quarterback was on a forum panel in Los Angeles on Friday discussing the city’s NFL prospects when he expressed concern about concussions harming the league’s status of being the country’s No. 1 professional sport.

“The long-term viability, to me anyway, is somewhat in question as far as what this game is going to look like 20 years from now,” Aikman said, according to the LA Times.

“If (I had a son), I wouldn’t tell him he couldn’t play football. If he wanted to, I would say ‘OK, great.’ But I don’t know if I would be encouraging him to play. Whereas, with the other sports, you want your kids to be active and doing those types of things.”

That sentiment is what Aikman, who suffered 10 concussions in his career, believes is going to drive people away from football, opening the door for other sports to supplant the NFL in popularity unless the league takes a proper course of action.

“I think we’re going to look back at this point in time and say these were the missteps that the National Football League took that kept football from being the No. 1 sport,” he said.

“I believe, and this is my opinion, that at some point football is not going to be the No. 1 sport. You talk about the ebbs and flows of what’s popular and what’s not. At some point, the TV ratings are not going to be there.”

Aikman certainly voices a valid opinion. Football is always going to be a violent sport. But one can only hope standards and equipment are improved to the point where player safety doesn’t ruin the NFL’s reputation. You know, before having a team in London will.

Photo credit: Dale Zanine, US Presswire

Eli Manning is a big boy. He’s an NFL quarterback who has already won a Super Bowl and is still very much in the prime of his career. Any quarterback who plays at the NFL level receives their fair share of criticism because so much is expected of them. With that in mind, you can understand why Archie Manning’s comments about Troy Aikman and Joe Buck criticizing his son came off as annoying. Based on the comments he made on the Dan Patrick Show Thursday morning, Aikman does not think Eli needs daddy to stick up for him.

“Eli hasn’t said anything to me,” Aikman said. “He’s 30 years old and if he has something to say or if he feels I’m being a little too tough then he can certainly voice that.”

Aikman is right about that.  In fact, I doubt Eli even cares what he and Buck say about him on Sundays.  The other thing Troy is right about is that Eli — like many other signal callers in the league — has a tendency to try to force some throws.  When he makes a bad pass, the commentators have every right to criticize him for it.  In fact, it’s part of their job in being objective.

“I think Eli is playing outstanding,” Aikman said. “Archie is referring to a game a few weeks back, when Eli, with a one-possession lead, threw a reckless ball into the corner of the end zone, it was intercepted and you just can’t have that as a quarterback. I know that, Eli knows that. I pointed it out. Sometimes quarterbacks don’t play as great as their parents think they do.”

Eli has received plenty of praise, particularly this season as he has been playing at a higher level than usual.  That being said, he’s going to make plenty of mistakes.  If Archie doesn’t like to hear people pointing out those mistakes, he should utilize the mute button.

Chest bump to Pro Football Talk for passing along the interview.

There comes a time when every parent has to learn to let go.  You can’t defend your baby forever.  You can hold your youngest child’s hand through the NFL draft and force a trade that results in him playing in the city you want him to play in, but that’s where it should stop.  Yet, Archie Manning still feels the need to stick up for Eli Manning when people are being meanies to his son.

On Monday, Archie told ESPN.com that he thinks the announcing tandem of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman can be too hard on Eli.

“I don’t always listen to Troy and Joe,” Archie said. “They’re kind of hard on Eli. Joe’s always been really tough on Eli, and it seems this year Troy is too. But that’s OK. Sometimes I just mute them.”

What a strange complaint.  First of all, when I think about Eli Manning the first thing that pops into my head is Joe Buck’s voice screaming, “What a throw by Eli MANNING!”  Maybe I’m imagining that, but regardless I don’t see them as being any harder on Eli than anyone else.  I know Tom Coughlin does his best to place Eli among the top quarterbacks in the game and Eli himself thinks he’s elite, but who cares what Buck and Aikman say?  It seems like everyone is doing their best to stroke Eli’s ego this year, and I’ve yet to figure out why.

H/T to NESN for passing along the story.

Not long ago, we interviewed legendary fighter Evander Holyfield who said he wouldn’t stop boxing until he became heavyweight champion of the world again. The man was completely serious and made many of us question his sanity. In response to Holyfield’s claim, our man Harvey Bars of Tirico Suave said “If you have a Sega Genesis game named after you, it’s probably time to retire.” Well that comment seemed so accurate it inspired us to examine every single Sega Genesis sports game to see where those athletes and coaches have gone. Get ready for a trip down memory lane.

Joe Montana Football – Montana went on to set a career-high in passing yards with 3,944 the season after this game was released on New Year’s Day 1990. The following season, an elbow injury essentially ended his time in San Francisco, and he retired after two relatively successful seasons in Kansas City. Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2000, Montana was named the fourth greatest player in NFL history by the NFL Network.

Troy Aikman NFL Football – Following a year in which he posted a career-high 99.0 passer rating and led his team to its second-straight Super Bowl victory, this game was released on June 1, 1994. Aikman would play seven more seasons and win one more Super Bowl before retiring in 2000 due in large part to several concussions. He’s been nominated for an Emmy for his work as a color commentator for Fox Network and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2006.

Prime Time NFL Football starring Deion Sanders – Sanders had just been named the NFL Defensive Player of the Year when this game was released on Jan. 1, 1995. The two-sport star played in 137 combined games between the Reds and the Giants and missed the first half of that NFL season after knee surgery. Sanders retired in 2001, only to return three years later to play parts of two seasons with the Ravens. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year.

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