Fans today are extremely familiar with Troy Aikman in the broadcasting role. But before he joined the commentary booth, he was running roughshod over the league as the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys.
A true transformative force for the organization, he ushered in a golden era for the franchise, winning three Super Bowls with them. However, even amid those highs, he admitted to some rough patches he went through.
Troy Aikman Took Time to Settle in with the Cowboys
The first overall pick in the 1989 NFL Draft, it took a while for the Cowboys to flourish under Aikman. In his rookie season, as he started 11 games for them, the team went winless in those encounters, further ramping up the pressure.
Even though he would go on to win back-to-back titles in 1992 and 1993, the middle years were among the toughest of his career. In a tell-all appearance on the “Your Dark Companion” podcast, Aikman was candid about the pressure he was feeling at the time.
“It was a tough year for me; it was a tough year for everybody,” Aikman said of his rookie season. “I know it was a horrendous year for Cowboys fans. You know, Mike, the second year was an even harder year for me through the first 12 games or so of that season.”
Explaining the difference, he added, “Because what happens is when you come into the organization like I did, and the first overall pick as the quarterback, and the team’s not very good, it’s easy to say, ‘Well, I’m really not part of this problem because this team was [like this], that’s why I’m here. This team was bad a year ago. This was the worst football team in the league a year ago, and that’s why they had the first overall pick.'”
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However, in his second year, Aikman felt the onus of responsibility was on him. “But in year two, you start taking some ownership yourself. And so year two, I knew that, well, now I am part of the problem if we don’t get this turned around.”
Unfortunately, 1990 wasn’t going swimmingly for the team, or for the former Super Bowl MVP either. Aikman said, “So, midway through the season, we were not playing good football. We were the worst offense in the league. I was not playing particularly well. And that was probably the rock bottom of my NFL career.”
However, almost exactly from that moment forward, there was no looking back for the franchise. They would put together a legendary run that has forever cemented the Cowboys as America’s Team.
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Aikman continued, “Fortunately, shortly thereafter, we got on a four-game winning streak that put us in position to potentially make the playoffs, and we ended up losing the last two games. I separated my shoulder in the second-to-last game of the year.”
From that point forward, they were able to make a quick turnaround to become a perennial threat for the title. But even then, Aikman admitted that without that quick turnaround, his career could have panned out very differently.
“But then, when you look back, in 1992 and just four years removed, really three years removed from being the worst team in football, having won just one game, and then to be hoisting the Lombardi Trophy,” Aikman added. “That was rather quick. How quickly that turned around for us. And it’s a good thing it did. I don’t know what my mindset might have been had we not gotten it turned around as quickly as we did.”
But that moment was the spark plug that the entire team needed. The offense, under Aikman, started humming on all cylinders while building an equally stout defense on the other side of the ball.
As a result, they rattled off three Super Bowl victories in the 1990s, and the doldrums at the start of his career became a thing of the past for the Hall of Famer.
