Troy Aikman knows a thing or two about a potent offense. The Cowboys teams he quarterbacked in the ’90s were among the most lethal that the league had ever seen, with multiple ways to torch a defense. Load the box against Emmitt Smith, and get ready for Michael Irvin, Alvin Harper, Jay Novacek, or even Deion Sanders to have big receiving days. Devote resources to pass coverage, and No. 22 would run rampant.
Aikman had a front-row seat watching that machine work for 12 years. There weren’t a lot of teams that got the better of those (later) Cowboys squads of Aikman’s tenure, but when it happened, the Hall of Famer got an up-close look at what was effective in shutting his unit down.
On Tuesday, he shared his scouting report on both the Cowboys and the Carolina Panthers heading into their Week 4 meeting. He says the Panthers defense will face a steep challenge in picking their poison.
“I hear this, ‘Hey, we’ve got to stop the run; we’ve got to run the ball,’ and I think there is a mentality that comes with being able to run the football. To some degree, you have to be able to slow down the running game. You can’t just let people run through you. But there’s very few teams in the history of the league or today [that] run right through your defense. It doesn’t typically happen,” he said on WTCK The Ticket.
Carolina currently leads the NFL in rush defense, giving up just 2.6 yards per carry and rank second in total points allowed, 30. But two of the Panthers’ three wins have come against weak Jets and Texans clubs. Dallas will be a whole new ballgame, and Aikman says Carolina may want to focus instead on winning the time of possession battle.
“If you’re an inferior team- and I think a lot of teams who are going to come and play Dallas are going to be inferior to them,” Aikman warns, “then the best way in order to get into the fourth quarter with a chance to win, which is all you’re hoping for, you want to minimize the offensive snaps. The more snaps they have, the better chance they have of blowing you out and scoring points. To do that, you have to shorten the game. You try to shorten the game by controlling the clock on your side of the ball, but also not giving up big plays. So I would play coverage. I would try to keep them from making big plays in the passing game and then make them just commit through the game of running the ball. Can you stop them? You get them to third down and you make a play, a dropped pass, a DB makes a play, then they’re punting. That’s the way that I would do it. I would not come up and try to stop the run and be over-committed to that and Ezekiel Elliott and [Tony] Pollard- and I like what he’s done too- and then allow CeeDee Lamb and the rest of them to run through your secondary. I think that’s a recipe for getting blown out.”
The Panthers boast stout numbers against the pass, too. Their 6.2-yards-allowed-per-throw is fourth-best in the league, but again, that’s come against two teams that aren’t exactly aerial juggernauts. They were able to limit the Saints’ Jameis Winston to just 110 passing yards, but shouldn’t expect to keep the red-hot Prescott similarly grounded.
If Sunday’s game turns into a shootout, the Panthers will have to rely on Sam Darnold. Cowboys fans, of course, are still smarting from the blindside beating he gave Dallas in 2019, fresh off a case of mononucleosis, no less. That day’s performance may have been the exception to Darnold’s time in New York rather than the rule, but it may actually be closer to what the former first-round draft pick is routinely capable of in his new surroundings in Charlotte.
“Sam, to my surprise, was not happy when he found out he was being traded,” Aikman shared. “And the reason was that he knew that [Robert] Saleh going in as the [Jets’] head coach, and then what they were going to be doing offensively with Mike LaFleur’s offense, that he felt it would be a real good fit for him. But when he found out he was going to Carolina, and he got into the program and the offense, he has been re-energized and he has been playing with a lot more confidence… I think he’s more decisive and I think- one, that’s him, but I think that’s also the team- and he knows what he’s being asked to do and he’s got good players around him.”
But Darnold has nothing to do with the Panthers defense, and won’t be of any help as they try to contain Prescott and the Cowboys. This iteration may not be at the level of those Triplets teams of the Super Bowl years (yet), but Aikman sees plenty of similarities to the rosters that surrounded him.
“I see a team that has a lot of different ways to beat you, and that’s always good,” the veteran FOX analyst said. “And it’s especially nice when you’re in an offensive league and you go into every game- regardless of who you’re playing- and you feel like you can score every time you have the ball. And I think that’s the kind of confidence they’re playing with. I didn’t expect that game to be close [Monday] night. It wasn’t. I guess the fumble that Fletcher Cox catches and scores, that was about as close as it got, really. But it doesn’t matter — like, even against Tampa Bay; Tampa Bay is a really good defensive team, and yet Dallas is able to move the ball and add some with turnovers. But they can do that against everybody that they play, and I think it’s gone, at least [according to] what I kind of expected. The defense has gotten takeaways, which has been huge. But I think it’s overall a better group, and they’re only going to get better. And they’re good enough with what they have on offense that I do think it could be a really special year for Dallas.”
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