DALLAS — Troy Aikman said Thursday that a Week 1 loss is not the end of the world. In 1993, the season after Aikman and the Dallas Cowboys won Super Bowl XXVII, Dallas started 0-2 and won Super Bowl XXVIII anyway.
Aikman made the comments on his weekly visit with The Musers on Sportsradio 96.7 FM/1310 The Ticket. The appearance came four days after the New York Giants beat Dallas 28-20 in the opener at MetLife Stadium, and three days before the Washington Commanders visit AT&T Stadium for the Cowboys’ home opener.
Emmitt Smith held out the first two games of the 1993 season in a contract dispute. Dallas lost the opener to Washington and then lost to the Buffalo Bills. The Cowboys finished 12-4 and beat Buffalo 30-13 in the Super Bowl. The question Aikman got the week before the third game that year was whether he was concerned that no team starting 0-2 had ever reached the Super Bowl.
“No doubt. But it’s not the end of the world either if you don’t,” Aikman said. “I take, for instance, last year, Denver got off to a tough start. … I mean, even if you look at Sean Payton and what he’s done throughout his career going back to New Orleans, his record over the month of September is not very good.”
“I know Belichick,” Aikman continued, “when I would visit with him, especially when the offseason rules changed and you weren’t able to spend as much time with the players and in training camp with the two-a-days, he really felt that September was an extension of the preseason. And so there was no real panic there. And there were a number of years where they got off to a 2-2 start in New England and then would just roll through the rest of their year.”
“But, yeah, it’s real. I know back in ’93, after we came off our Super Bowl, [we] were 0-2,” Aikman added. “And I was asked the week leading up to our third game, ‘Are you concerned that no team that’s ever started 0-2 has made it to the Super Bowl?’ And I said, I mean, Super Bowl was the furthest thing from my mind. I said, ‘No, my bigger concern is if you tell me that no 0-2 team has ever gone on to be 1-2.’ I mean, that would be a concern.”
“So you just take them one week at a time,” Aikman noted. “And with 17 games, it gives you more of an opportunity. It’s not as big a deal as it once was.”
The NFL played a 16-game schedule in 1993. Dallas was the first team to win a Super Bowl after an 0-2 start.
Before Sunday, the Cowboys had won 11 of their 12 season openers against the Giants. New York played Sunday under first-year coach John Harbaugh, and Aikman said Dallas’ recent success against the Giants was something the team knew going in.
“I think for Dallas, because they had so much success against the Giants here in the number of years when they’ve played,” Aikman explained, “that there’s no question that the team knew that going in, that none of them are easy, especially within the division. A new head coach, that brings real optimism and a different sense of energy to the building. But I think that’s the furthest thing from anyone’s mind that they would go out and have the kind of game that they had.”
“I mean, the Giants never trailed in that game and pretty much had it under control throughout the night,” Aikman detailed. “So I’m looking forward to this week and seeing how they rebound.”
Troy Aikman On Dan Quinn And Washington Commanders
Dan Quinn is in his third season as Washington’s coach. He ran the Dallas defense from 2021 through 2023 before taking the job. Washington went 12-5 in his first season and reached the NFC Championship Game. Last season, the Commanders went 5-12.
First-year offensive coordinator David Blough is calling plays for Washington. On Sunday, the Commanders lost 24-22 at the Philadelphia Eagles when a two-point try late in the fourth quarter was stopped. Aikman watched some of that game and called Quinn a really good football coach.
“I watched a little bit of their game last week. I think there’s pressure on Dan, even as good a year as they had two years ago,” Aikman said. “And the way last year went, made some changes within the staff, went with a young guy who’s calling plays for them offensively. It didn’t appear they really got going on that side of the ball last week. But he’s a really good football coach.”
“You come in and you have the year that he had his first year and certainly raised expectations for the organization,” Aikman continued. “And then last year they just struggled coming out of the gate and just couldn’t really get anything going. And so I think that adds to whatever frustrations they had last year as they go into this year and the expectations that the ownership has and the organization itself has for them. And we’ll see how it goes.”
“There’s a real sense of urgency and in some ways despair,” Aikman added. “Because every team that goes into that first game, all 32 teams throughout the offseason, and this is every year going back to when I played, before I played, and since, that everyone feels that they’re better than they were the year before. And it really doesn’t matter who they lost, how they replaced those players, or whatever their situation might be. There’s always optimism within each of these teams, and they all feel that they got better. And then, obviously, not everyone is going to be better.”
“I mean, when you come in now to this second week of the season and try to figure out what teams are going to be competitive, who’s going to be good, who’s going to maybe drop off from where they were a year ago,” Aikman noted, “Week 2 gives you a pretty good indication coming off of the struggles that some of them had Week 1.”
Troy Aikman Has New York Giants At Los Angeles Rams On Monday Night Football
Aikman and Joe Buck have the Giants at the Los Angeles Rams on Monday night at SoFi Stadium. Kickoff is set for 7:15 p.m. CT on ESPN and ABC.
The Rams lost their opener 27-7 to the San Francisco 49ers on Sept. 10 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia. Aikman said everybody had been talking about handing the Rams the Lombardi Trophy before that.
“That’d be interesting. I mean, that’s going to be a good one when you got the Giants at 1-0,” Aikman said. “And the game was going to be good already, but it just got a whole lot better, especially with the Rams playing the way they did over in Australia. You talk about urgency. I mean, everybody was talking about them going ahead and giving them the Lombardi Trophy. So, yeah, a lot of pressure on, certainly a lot of pressure on the Rams as they head into Week 2.”
Washington is 18-44-2 all-time on the road against Dallas. The Commanders and Cowboys kick off Sunday at 3:25 p.m. CT on Fox.
