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[h=1]Bob Sturm 3h ago[/h] 19 in ’19 highlights the 19 most impactful Cowboys, Rangers, Mavericks and Stars throughout the history of each franchise. Our staff voted on the top 19 from all four combined lists to create these overall rankings. You can find all of our team lists and profiles here.
“A couple years ago during an interview, I was asked, “If I got to coach one game, who would I choose for my starting QB?” It was a very easy question for me to answer. I told them I would choose Troy. “Why?” Because I want to win.” – Norv Turner, presenting Troy Aikman at the Pro Football Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, August 5, 2006.
We have lost our collective minds, I must assume.
Because the further we get from the career of the Hall of Fame Quarterback Troy Aikman, the more we hear discussions in various corners of football fandom about whether he was as great as so many in the NFL say.
How can he be ranked as one of the best ever to play the game? How he can be in the Hall of Fame?
58th in all-time passer rating?
73rd in most touchdown passes?
38th in passing yards?
85th in yards per attempt?
57th in yards per game?
61st in fourth-quarter comebacks?
How can a QB with such pedestrian numbers be rated so highly?
How can you try to tell me he is one of the ten best quarterbacks of all-time?
When I say “we,” I must confess I was once part of this group. For I was once young and uninformed. I once had nothing but my book of stats and would argue that Aikman’s numbers were insufficient for consideration as a legend. I would see this personal milestone and that one, and was locked into my “fantasy football” mentality that the numbers were all that mattered.
Thank goodness that we gain wisdom with age. I might not be as young as I once was, but that means I have had plenty of years to visit with wise football men and study what I missed the first time. In my mid-20s, at the start of my career, I would rely on a spreadsheet to show you that Troy Aikman was not as great as the other superstar quarterbacks of his era.
Now, I would like to make the case that he was absolutely everything those around him said he was.
I was very wrong 20 years ago. And I wish to take this opportunity to make things right, despite the fact that he hasn’t thrown a pass in the two decades since.
You see, sports can be nuanced. We want things to be linear and connected and for one plus one to equal two. We want winners and losers, heroes and villains. Sometimes those definitions are clear, but sometimes we need to drop our preconceived agendas and try to understand why a dynasty was a dynasty in the first place.
I have a couple confessions to make while trying to not make this about me. We will spend almost all of this column about Aikman and what I now find to be his undeniable greatness. But I had better tell you a two things really fast.
“I’m a big stats guy. The thing about Troy Aikman that is tough to get past is the fact that he had one season in his career where he had more than 20 touchdowns. 20 touchdowns? That’s very pedestrian.” – a much younger Bob Sturm on NFL Films
Now, please allow an older and hopefully wiser Bob Sturm to proceed. [HR][/HR]
We certainly throw the term “dynasty” around too easily these days. The truth is that championships are rare, and the ability to pack multiple titles into a short amount of time is as rare as it gets in a league with as much parity as the National Football League. I believe a proper definition of the word dynasty as it pertains to our sports world should be “winning at least three titles in a span of time no longer than twice the number of years as titles.” In other words, being a dynasty requires at least three titles in six years (or four in eight, five in ten, etc).
By that definition, we have six dynasties in the “Super Bowl era” to consider:
Bart Starr. Terry Bradshaw. Joe Montana. Troy Aikman. Tom Brady. Tom Brady.
Are their individual merits better than the best ever? No. But when you combine the individual merits and the team accomplishments, these are the decade-by-decade legends. The 1960s belonged to Starr, the 1970s to Bradshaw. Montana owned the 1980s, Aikman the 1990s and Tom Brady was somehow king of two different decades in pretty ridiculous fashion.
Starr is probably most like Aikman in that his career raw numbers won’t set the fantasy world on fire, but his efficiency numbers in his era are top of the charts. Montana and Brady will probably be able to stand on either side of the divide without a big issue.
What makes Troy Aikman worthy of every bit of praise he gets? Several things come quickly to mind. Before we get to the biggest and most obvious one, I think we should also work our way in that direction.
The term “bus driver” describes safe quarterbacks whose individual numbers do not measure up with the best in their era. If you aren’t careful, you might think Aikman — with only one season over 20 touchdowns — might be one of those bus drivers. Let’s be very careful to not fall victim to a lack of context on that front. Let’s not confuse quantity with quality. Because the Cowboys and Aikman did not lack for passing quality.
Note what the Cowboys offense was capable of between 1991 through 1995. We might call that the peak of the Dallas dynasty, between the real blasting off of the Jimmy Johnson era and the end of the ride at Super Bowl 30. We might call it the prime of Troy Aikman (who was between 25 and 29 years of age in those years). We might remember how things were before Michael Irvin’s career ended so suddenly and the roster was torn apart by free agency. We might consider life before the end of Jay Novacek’s career. We might notice all of the coaches who were plucked away to coach in their own opportunities elsewhere. The Cowboys had an elite offense that put up big points and never once did their passing offense rank outside of the top of the league. Heck, in 1995, they were the most efficient passing offense in the NFL from a net yards/attempt standpoint. In 1994, they actually even performed better and still ranked second.
In other words, this is not the work of a bus driver. This is simply a team that could kill you on the ground or through the air, and to suggest that the passing offense was being carried, protected or lagged behind the running game is pure fiction.
DALLAS COWBOYS OFFENSIVE RANKS, 1989-2000
Season Scoring Rank Pass Yards/Attempt Y/A Rank Net Pass Yards/Att NY/A Rank
In other words, it wasn’t that they passed poorly. They simply passed less.
Last week I asked Aikman this question: How do you deal with people picking apart your offensive numbers?
He honestly doesn’t mind the conversation, and he certainly doesn’t seem insecure in his position. “What gets lost in my numbers is that in a lot of games we couldn’t run the ball at all in the first half,” he said. “So, quite often, we threw the ball to build leads, and then we ran the ball to secure the win.Which was all fine. The other thing is we had a good offensive line, and we pounded the ball with Emmitt, as you well know. So when people say, ‘How does he only throw for 20 touchdowns in one season?’ OK. But, who cares? We were high in scoring. And, ultimately, that was the job of the offense.”
But wouldn’t it bother you that us “stats guys” had issues with your production relative to the other quarterbacks in your era?
“It doesn’t matter. To me, it just doesn’t matter how we would score,” he responded.
“The interesting stat that tells the story is yards per pass. Those years of our success, we would lead the league in yards per pass. It wasn’t like I couldn’t throw it. We threw the ball better than anybody. We just didn’t throw it as much.”
He is right. With the possible exception of San Francisco’s offense in those years, the rest of the NFL had to look up at Dallas when it came to pass efficiency. Of course, they also had to look up in terms of run efficiency. This is what dynasties are made of. They are always ahead. They can do whatever they want on offense. You can try to take away one thing, and they would beat you the other way.
But nowhere in the equation was a quarterback who was worried about his own personal statistics. Does that make him uncommon? Maybe. Does that make him inferior or feeling as if he didn’t have the quality of his contemporaries? Not a chance. Why would QBs care about anything but winning? Why would a QB get caught up in his personal statistics if winning was all that matters?
Aikman had thoughts on this, too. “I think quarterbacks, and people in general, are selfish. I don’t think it is just in sports. They think, ‘What is in it for me?’ It is more so now than it was then with fantasy football — which was around when I was playing, but it wasn’t at the levels it is now. So statistics become more important for a couple generations of fans.”
“Around the league, whether you are talking about the Bill Belichicks, the Bill Parcells, the Mike Holmgrens … I had the respect of those guys that mattered to me, and I think I always have – including my teammates,” he continued. “I certainly see (the criticism and ‘overrated’ labels) out there now because of Twitter and understand what some people think. I don’t think it is the majority, but I think it is a group that never paid much attention or didn’t really see me play and just looked at the statistics. But I don’t see a need to defend myself, and I am confident about the contributions I had on those teams.”
There was certainly another key person to visit with about the quality of Aikman’s play during this dynasty stretch and how the numbers aren’t exactly always to be taken at face value. That would be the offensive mastermind, and the guy often calling the plays. Norv Turner was the offensive coordinator from 1991 through 1993, and there are few men in this sport who have coached offense for longer with more franchise quarterbacks along the way. His words about the era are certainly worth considering.
“I just saw an article the other day, and you can look this up, that through most of his career, he was last in the NFL in passes attempted in the fourth quarter, and our style was not to go run it up or see how many passing touchdowns or passing yards we can get,” Turner said. “Our intention was to win the game, and we worked hard at that. Bill Belichick’s getting a lot of credit now for, ‘Hey, do what you have to do to win each game.’ Well, Jimmy was that way all the time I was with him. ‘Hey, what do we have to do to win this week?’ And that’s the way we approached it, so that’s the way he performed.
“The guys who coached against him, I know a couple of guys that coached him in the Pro Bowl, the guys who physically saw him — writers, coaches, players — would tell you he’s one of the best passers ever, one of the most accurate passers ever. The guys who are questioning him probably never saw him play; they’re looking at the numbers, and that’s not the way you evaluate players. I would tell you this: Right now, people are getting enamored with the numbers, but every quarterback in this league is going to have a lot of passing yards because that’s the way the game is being played now. That doesn’t mean they’re good quarterbacks. There are a lot of guys who are throwing for over 4,000 yards ,and they’re not playing winning football. Troy played winning football.”
I asked Norv to further elaborate on that point of “winning football” to explain what he meant and how vital it is to championships. “Troy, if you look at him and guys you want to evaluate and compare him to, he’s probably in the bottom third or last in passing yards in the fourth quarter. We weren’t behind a lot, and when we got ahead, we didn’t tend to throw the ball a lot,” Turner said. “There’s a lot of guys that are averaging 100 yards per game in the fourth quarter and it’s garbage time; it’s either up by two scores or down by 17, 21 points and people get enamored by those statistics, but a lot of times, they’re pretty meaningless.”
They aren’t meaningless if he is your fantasy quarterback, of course. But if the biggest and most important job of any QB is to put their team in position to win the game, then those yards are insignificant. One other key trait is an aversion to taking your team out of position to win by doing something that could be considered “dumb.”
Very few players did both so well. He made plays without making mistakes. The way Aikman saw his job description speaks volumes about how he played the game: “I think at the end of the day that the quarterback’s job is to win games,” he said. “That is ultimately everyone’s job, but more or less the QB is responsible for making sure that happens.”
(Photo: Mike Powell/Allsport)
The above discussion was certainly compelling, but it wasn’t what made me realize how mistaken I once was about his dossier.
Compelling arguments are best found in January of every year. In my mind, a dynasty will play most regular-season games in a position where they are a clear favorite against an overmatched opponent. The results matter and should be considered, but if you want to explain a player’s place in history, show me what they are doing in the postseason. The playoffs are where the mismatched opponents are home watching on their couches. It is quality versus quality. Heavyweight versus heavyweight. If you want to demonstrate what a player meant to his team, show me what he did in the playoffs.
And this is where Aikman’s resume should silence any doubter. I can only assume those doubters — those who dare compare him to Donovan McNabb, Vinny Testaverde or even get silly with Ryan Fitzpatrick — are simply unaware of the following truths.
Allow me to take you on a journey of unprecedented greatness from one of the greatest to ever lace them up. I’ll start with a question:
If you examine the resume of Aikman’s 12-year career, which of his seasons would you consider the very best of the bunch?
Would you pick 1992, when he had his career highs in yards and touchdowns? Or 1993, when he was dealing with the Emmitt Smith holdout and led the NFL in completion percentage? Maybe you would argue for 1994, when Jimmy Johnson and Norv Turner were gone, and he put up the best team numbers of the entire run on offense? Or possibly 1995, when he had the league’s lowest interception percentage?
I am sorry to say you are wrong on all of those.
Because the best season of Troy Aikman’s 12-year career would easily be the 13th season. And, by that, I mean the 16 playoff games through which he led the franchise. If you look at his career playoff performances — which constitute an entire NFL season on their own — you will find that his most prolific passing performances were always in January. Against the best opponents and with the highest stakes and pressure, Aikman shone brightest in his biggest games. If he was taking a backseat in October, it was because the team had options. But in January, they were only knocking out their capable and worthy opponents — those who had their own Hall of Fame quarterbacks, by the way — because Dallas’ QB had and delivered the goods when it mattered most. And that is a pretty special distinction that cements his place in football immortality.
From 1992-1995, the Cowboys’ quarterback had a playoff run of 11 games. In those 11, the Cowboys went 10-1, and the one loss was to the 49ers in what many call Aikman’s finest hour. They say that not for his statistics, but for his courageous performance in the face of adversity and the fight to the very end. But those 11 games were absolutely the finest sample of Aikman playing QB that you will find.
It measures up with any four-year run of playoff football that can be found in the long history of this sport. In other words, it isn’t just “good for Aikman.” It is great for any quarterback at any time in history.
Courtesy of ProFootballReference.com, here are those 11 passing performances Aikman put together during the dynasty years. Please notice the numbers, the completion percentages, the yardage, the passing touchdowns, the lack of interceptions, and yes, please notice how many games ended with a passer rating over 100:
Troy Aikman, post-season game log, 1992-1995
Now, you might notice the opponents in those 11 playoff games. You may remember their quarterbacks: Brett Favre (3), Steve Young (3), Jim Kelly (2), Randall Cunningham (2) and Neil O’Donnell. That list includes three Hall of Fame QBs, one who might be soon and O’Donnell. He was playing against great teams and had to be better than the Hall of Famers on the other side.
Here are their passing days during that stretch. You may notice that on 10 of the 11 occasions, Aikman had a better passing day than his opponent. The one exception is the single game he lost. In the others, he outplayed immortal quarterbacks on the biggest stages in January. That is meaningful.
Dallas Opponents, post-season game log, 1992-1995
Surely, this is a good spot to point out that this isn’t one on one basketball or boxing in which Aikman is defending Favre and vice versa. Huge marks should go to the Cowboys’ defensive players and coaches for never getting overrun by the opponent’s passing game and all of the takeaways they were able to generate along the way. But, in another sense, how often do we suggest that the team that will win this playoff game is the team that gets a bigger performance from their quarterback?
If you want a compelling argument for his resume, it would be his dominance over Favre, Young, Kelly and Cunningham during this stretch. If you want to see the totals, check it out below. This is not the work of a bus driver. In fact, if you want Aikman in your fantasy league, make it a playoff fantasy league and you might take him No. 1 overall – just as he was taken in real life!
TOTAL PASSING STATS, PLAYOFFS, 1992-1995 (11 games)
Name Completions Attempts Yards Touchdowns Interceptions Rating
That is what you would call rising to the occasion and certainly not watching Emmitt Smith and the offensive line carry the team. Meanwhile, look at what Aikman’s contemporaries did! Goodness gracious, that isn’t going to win in the postseason. The excellent Cowboys defense certainly had something to do with that, but they were not alone. I wanted to ask both Aikman and Turner about this and how significant this particular stretch of greatness really is and how aware of it they were.
Norv knew it like it was the back of his hand, “I was totally aware of that and it was probably more by design than people would ever realize,” he said. “I mean, in the playoffs, you’re playing the best teams, and we were in a division where we were playing Philadelphia, who was a great defense at the time. The 49ers were still a dominant team. We played Green Bay. It was extremely competitive, and I think you had that balance and you had to be able to throw the football and make big plays in the passing game and that’s why we were successful in the playoffs through those years — obviously, Buffalo and their defense. We were successful because we did pretty much lead with the pass, and Emmitt was kind of the finisher.”
I asked Norv about the idea of trying to outlast those other quarterback greats and not making a fatal mistake in a huge playoff moment.
“No question,” he said. “I think that was one of Troy’s strengths anyways, but in those games, because of the people you’re talking about, you knew you were going to have to go score points, and we did do that. I mean, his first run in 1992 at the Super Bowl, I think that team averaged 35 points in those three games (actually, 38.6) and maybe more. I think he threw nine touchdowns or whatever that was (eight). It was pretty remarkable what he did. But he did that the whole time I was there.”
Aikman looks back at those games quite fondly: “It is what I am most proud of, quite honestly. My best games were in the biggest ones and on the biggest stages, and that is what I am really proud of when I look back.”
So, what about those other dynasties? Is it normal for those quarterbacks to be at their best with such routine and such superiority over the QB across the field in those settings? I thought it was worth taking a look at those snapshots from the others to help put Aikman’s 10-1 with nine different 100-passer rating days into perspective.
Bart Starr, 1961-1967
Starr was Troy Aikman before Troy Aikman. He played for Vince Lombardi, on a team that dominated on the ground, was loaded with Hall of Famers all over the field and never gave a playoff game away. The comps are pretty impressive, and the playoff format back then meant you could win five titles and only play in nine playoff games along the way. Of those nine elimination games against top talent — including two close wins against the Cowboys — Starr was pretty great in some pretty lousy conditions (the Ice Bowl and the 1965 Championship Game against Cleveland were both far from good conditions to throw). 14 touchdowns, only five interceptions and a passer rating 98 or above on five occasions is salty indeed for that era. The 1966 NFL Championship game in Fair Park was his gem, with four touchdowns on the road in a thriller against the Cowboys.
Terry Bradshaw, 1974-1979
I am sure it won’t be lost on Cowboys fans how great Bradshaw, just like Starr, seemed to be when he played against Dallas — especially in Super Bowl 13. Two of his very best passer-rating days came against Dallas in two Super Bowls, and as you can see, Bradshaw was over 100 in all four Super Bowls that he won (the games notated with the “N” for neutral field by the opponent). Of all of the dynasty quarterbacks on this list, though, Bradshaw had the lowest cumulative passer rating, the lowest completion percentage and definitely the highest interception numbers. You can also see that he didn’t complete more than 19 passes in a game on this entire list save for a playoff game against Miami in 1979. He did a lot of great things for the Steelers, but you can definitely see some issues with his individual performances, especially in those 1974 and 1975 title runs.
Joe Montana, 1984-1990
He is Joe Montana. He doesn’t require a whole lot of explanation, and his numbers don’t require much massaging. His reputation speaks for itself, and his place in history is more than secure. Those Super Bowl performances were so good, and the entire runs of 1988 and 1989 were off the charts from a quarterback standpoint. I might nitpick about the three straight defeats in 1985 through 1987, when he had some really rough days against Bill Parcells a few times – the one coach who seemed to have some answers for Bill Walsh – but there isn’t much there. I did talk to Troy about Joe and since I had never heard this before, I thought you might like it, too:
“In 1993, the Chiefs played in the championship game against the Bills,” Aikman said. “I remember going into that day thinking, ‘You know, I don’t know if we are going to win our game or not against San Francisco, but God, I hope the Chiefs don’t beat the Bills.’ Because I just did not want to face Joe Montana – not that I would be facing him, but our defense would be. He was the one and only quarterback that I didn’t want to play in a playoff game because I held him in such high regard. I just figured that Joe would figure out a way to get it done. So I remember thinking I don’t want to face Joe in a Super Bowl. Those other guys, Jim and Steve and Brett, they were all friends and good guys. But even in my early years in playoff games, I never viewed it as a daunting task to play against them.”
Tom Brady, 2001-2004
And now, Tom Brady. The Patriots are the only other team to say they won three Super Bowls in four years and it was during this stretch from 2001 through 2004. (The Lombardi Packers lose that on a technicality of not calling the 1965 Championship Game a Super Bowl.) It took place during the start of Tom Brady’s career, and let’s not forget Drew Bledsoe actually played a lot of that 2001 AFC Championship Game (and threw the lone touchdown in that game). Brady, though, was magnificent in the Super Bowls against Carolina and Philadelphia, and by the time 2003 and 2004 rolled around, he was playing very well and leading this team to a 9-0 stretch in four years. Now, his efficiency was not quite as good as Aikman’s for most of the stretch, but he was obviously growing into his powers as a very young man. And note the idea that the best way to win playoff games is not to give them away: Brady threw just three interceptions in nine playoff games. This is the common denominator through all of these runs for all of these teams.
That is how Norv Turner always compares Brady and Aikman. “I think you trust the players in that situation, and Troy had a great understanding of how to play the game and win,” Turner said. “That came from Coach Johnson, from me coaching, but also it has to do with the player and not being selfish, not being greedy, understanding what you have to do to win. I see it very similar when Brady plays, they’re not by any means conservative, and they actually are very aggressive. We were very aggressive, but we trusted our players and certainly trusted Troy that he was going to make good decisions and he was so accurate with the ball that we were going to eliminate mistakes.”
Tom Brady, 2014-2018
Let’s be honest. The fact that a quarterback is able to pull off a second dynastic run at the ages of 37 through 41 is flat-out bonkers, and we don’t even know if it is over yet. In fact, common sense says we should probably assume it is not. And, as you can see here, he has developed enough as a quarterback that now the Patriots are pretty much asking him to be their entire offense at times as his passing numbers have soared to having two playoff runs recently when his yards per game is over 375! Three multi-interception games must be considered, but, in that Patriots way, they still won two of them and winning in Arrowhead this year against the Chiefs was one of the best wins Brady and Belichick ever pulled off. Tom’s play down the stretch at 41 years old will probably never be forgotten.
If we were to put those six dynasties together on one chart and look at the cumulative quarterback performances, it would look like this:
Dyansty QB From To G W L Cmp Att Cmp% Yds TD Int Sk Rate
This chart is the most compelling case for Troy Aikman’s spot in football immortality. Sure, Donovan McNabb can show you stats that prop up his career and tear down Aikman from the regular season. But he hardly could put two great consecutive playoff performances together in his career, let alone a four-year stretch that might be the greatest playoff run ever.
Aikman climbed into the ring with Steve Young, Brett Favre, Jim Kelly and Randall Cunningham over a four-year stretch – multiple times each to erase the chance of a fluke – and knew that if he didn’t out-play the quarterback across the field, his team wasn’t going to win the title. Yet, in nearly every case, he did it. There is a quarterback reason the Cowboys won three Lombardi Trophies during that stretch, and we wonder what the total might have been with Jimmy Johnson during the whole stretch. (Few dynasties attempt a head coaching change midway through it.)
Overrated? Please. This playoff resume is not that of a quarterback his team is carrying along. The evidence is clear to see now that I have spent enough time in the sport to know what I am looking at. I understand this not being clear to all before diving into this investigation. I was once guilty of spending too much time lost in my fantasy football numbers. Norv got a kick out of that. “Everybody’s throwing it a heck of a lot more now and it’s an exciting style of ball,” he said. “But like I say, the teams that win aren’t worrying about fantasy football.”
Then the coach wrapped it up like this without really being asked another question about Aikman.
“The one thing I’ll say, it’s not an accident that Troy was a first-ballot Hall of Fame guy,” he added. “The people who covered the Cowboys, the people who covered the NFL, players and coaches were 100 percent behind that selection. It’s a shame, it’s just like Bart Starr. This younger group, they look at the stats and Bart Starr and then you look the way he played and performed in the playoffs, you say, ‘Yeah, no wonder he’s a Hall of Fame quarterback.’ It’s just a whole different evaluation … It’s still about performance and a guy’s ability and No. 1 — and it always will be No. 1 — is winning games.”
“I’m glad you’re calling, and I love to do this. But people who know football, I don’t think they feel there’s any reason he needs to be defended.”
“A couple years ago during an interview, I was asked, “If I got to coach one game, who would I choose for my starting QB?” It was a very easy question for me to answer. I told them I would choose Troy. “Why?” Because I want to win.” – Norv Turner, presenting Troy Aikman at the Pro Football Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, August 5, 2006.
We have lost our collective minds, I must assume.
Because the further we get from the career of the Hall of Fame Quarterback Troy Aikman, the more we hear discussions in various corners of football fandom about whether he was as great as so many in the NFL say.
How can he be ranked as one of the best ever to play the game? How he can be in the Hall of Fame?
58th in all-time passer rating?
73rd in most touchdown passes?
38th in passing yards?
85th in yards per attempt?
57th in yards per game?
61st in fourth-quarter comebacks?
How can a QB with such pedestrian numbers be rated so highly?
How can you try to tell me he is one of the ten best quarterbacks of all-time?
When I say “we,” I must confess I was once part of this group. For I was once young and uninformed. I once had nothing but my book of stats and would argue that Aikman’s numbers were insufficient for consideration as a legend. I would see this personal milestone and that one, and was locked into my “fantasy football” mentality that the numbers were all that mattered.
Thank goodness that we gain wisdom with age. I might not be as young as I once was, but that means I have had plenty of years to visit with wise football men and study what I missed the first time. In my mid-20s, at the start of my career, I would rely on a spreadsheet to show you that Troy Aikman was not as great as the other superstar quarterbacks of his era.
Now, I would like to make the case that he was absolutely everything those around him said he was.
I was very wrong 20 years ago. And I wish to take this opportunity to make things right, despite the fact that he hasn’t thrown a pass in the two decades since.
You see, sports can be nuanced. We want things to be linear and connected and for one plus one to equal two. We want winners and losers, heroes and villains. Sometimes those definitions are clear, but sometimes we need to drop our preconceived agendas and try to understand why a dynasty was a dynasty in the first place.
I have a couple confessions to make while trying to not make this about me. We will spend almost all of this column about Aikman and what I now find to be his undeniable greatness. But I had better tell you a two things really fast.
- I grew up as a cheesehead and at my first opportunity bought a share of the Green Bay Packers so that I could be a part-owner of the sports franchise I was raised to love. Aikman and his team destroyed the Packers season after season in my formative years. (Eight times in five years, to be exact, including three playoff games in three years). I believe this affected me and my ability to see things for what they were during this time of personal torture.
- I currently work for Mr. Aikman as his research assistant on FOX broadcasts. I have been doing so since 2016 on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. I don’t believe this affected me and my ability to see his career for what it was, as my transformation was complete years before that ever happened. But you probably should be aware of that just in case.
“I’m a big stats guy. The thing about Troy Aikman that is tough to get past is the fact that he had one season in his career where he had more than 20 touchdowns. 20 touchdowns? That’s very pedestrian.” – a much younger Bob Sturm on NFL Films
Now, please allow an older and hopefully wiser Bob Sturm to proceed. [HR][/HR]
We certainly throw the term “dynasty” around too easily these days. The truth is that championships are rare, and the ability to pack multiple titles into a short amount of time is as rare as it gets in a league with as much parity as the National Football League. I believe a proper definition of the word dynasty as it pertains to our sports world should be “winning at least three titles in a span of time no longer than twice the number of years as titles.” In other words, being a dynasty requires at least three titles in six years (or four in eight, five in ten, etc).
By that definition, we have six dynasties in the “Super Bowl era” to consider:
- The 1961-1967 Green Bay Packers (five in seven years)
- The 1974-1979 Pittsburgh Steelers (four in six years)
- The 1984-1989 San Francisco 49ers (three in six years. Also, four in nine years if you run it back to 1981 — which doesn’t quite fall inside the dynasty guidelines but is still quite the run)
- The 1992-1995 Dallas Cowboys (three in four years)
- The 2001-2004 New England Patriots (three in four years)
- The 2014-2018 New England Patriots (three in five years)
Bart Starr. Terry Bradshaw. Joe Montana. Troy Aikman. Tom Brady. Tom Brady.
Are their individual merits better than the best ever? No. But when you combine the individual merits and the team accomplishments, these are the decade-by-decade legends. The 1960s belonged to Starr, the 1970s to Bradshaw. Montana owned the 1980s, Aikman the 1990s and Tom Brady was somehow king of two different decades in pretty ridiculous fashion.
Starr is probably most like Aikman in that his career raw numbers won’t set the fantasy world on fire, but his efficiency numbers in his era are top of the charts. Montana and Brady will probably be able to stand on either side of the divide without a big issue.
What makes Troy Aikman worthy of every bit of praise he gets? Several things come quickly to mind. Before we get to the biggest and most obvious one, I think we should also work our way in that direction.
The term “bus driver” describes safe quarterbacks whose individual numbers do not measure up with the best in their era. If you aren’t careful, you might think Aikman — with only one season over 20 touchdowns — might be one of those bus drivers. Let’s be very careful to not fall victim to a lack of context on that front. Let’s not confuse quantity with quality. Because the Cowboys and Aikman did not lack for passing quality.
Note what the Cowboys offense was capable of between 1991 through 1995. We might call that the peak of the Dallas dynasty, between the real blasting off of the Jimmy Johnson era and the end of the ride at Super Bowl 30. We might call it the prime of Troy Aikman (who was between 25 and 29 years of age in those years). We might remember how things were before Michael Irvin’s career ended so suddenly and the roster was torn apart by free agency. We might consider life before the end of Jay Novacek’s career. We might notice all of the coaches who were plucked away to coach in their own opportunities elsewhere. The Cowboys had an elite offense that put up big points and never once did their passing offense rank outside of the top of the league. Heck, in 1995, they were the most efficient passing offense in the NFL from a net yards/attempt standpoint. In 1994, they actually even performed better and still ranked second.
In other words, this is not the work of a bus driver. This is simply a team that could kill you on the ground or through the air, and to suggest that the passing offense was being carried, protected or lagged behind the running game is pure fiction.
DALLAS COWBOYS OFFENSIVE RANKS, 1989-2000
| 1989 | 28th | 6.1 | 28th | 5.3 | 27th |
| 1990 | 26th | 6.1 | 26th | 5 | 27th |
| 1991 | 7th | 7.3 | 5th | 6.3 | 7th |
| 1992 | 2nd | 7.3 | 8th | 6.8 | 3rd |
| 1993 | 2nd | 7.6 | 4th | 6.9 | 3rd |
| 1994 | 2nd | 7.7 | 2nd | 7.2 | 2nd |
| 1995 | 3rd | 7.6 | 3rd | 7.1 | 1st |
| 1996 | 25th | 6.7 | 13th | 6.2 | 9th |
| 1997 | 22nd | 6.2 | 25th | 5.3 | 23rd |
| 1998 | 9th | 7.5 | 8th | 7 | 5th |
| 1999 | 11th | 6.5 | 19th | 5.9 | 15th |
| 2000 | 23rd | 6.2 | 23rd | 5.3 | 21st |
In other words, it wasn’t that they passed poorly. They simply passed less.
Last week I asked Aikman this question: How do you deal with people picking apart your offensive numbers?
He honestly doesn’t mind the conversation, and he certainly doesn’t seem insecure in his position. “What gets lost in my numbers is that in a lot of games we couldn’t run the ball at all in the first half,” he said. “So, quite often, we threw the ball to build leads, and then we ran the ball to secure the win.Which was all fine. The other thing is we had a good offensive line, and we pounded the ball with Emmitt, as you well know. So when people say, ‘How does he only throw for 20 touchdowns in one season?’ OK. But, who cares? We were high in scoring. And, ultimately, that was the job of the offense.”
But wouldn’t it bother you that us “stats guys” had issues with your production relative to the other quarterbacks in your era?
“It doesn’t matter. To me, it just doesn’t matter how we would score,” he responded.
“The interesting stat that tells the story is yards per pass. Those years of our success, we would lead the league in yards per pass. It wasn’t like I couldn’t throw it. We threw the ball better than anybody. We just didn’t throw it as much.”
He is right. With the possible exception of San Francisco’s offense in those years, the rest of the NFL had to look up at Dallas when it came to pass efficiency. Of course, they also had to look up in terms of run efficiency. This is what dynasties are made of. They are always ahead. They can do whatever they want on offense. You can try to take away one thing, and they would beat you the other way.
But nowhere in the equation was a quarterback who was worried about his own personal statistics. Does that make him uncommon? Maybe. Does that make him inferior or feeling as if he didn’t have the quality of his contemporaries? Not a chance. Why would QBs care about anything but winning? Why would a QB get caught up in his personal statistics if winning was all that matters?
Aikman had thoughts on this, too. “I think quarterbacks, and people in general, are selfish. I don’t think it is just in sports. They think, ‘What is in it for me?’ It is more so now than it was then with fantasy football — which was around when I was playing, but it wasn’t at the levels it is now. So statistics become more important for a couple generations of fans.”
“Around the league, whether you are talking about the Bill Belichicks, the Bill Parcells, the Mike Holmgrens … I had the respect of those guys that mattered to me, and I think I always have – including my teammates,” he continued. “I certainly see (the criticism and ‘overrated’ labels) out there now because of Twitter and understand what some people think. I don’t think it is the majority, but I think it is a group that never paid much attention or didn’t really see me play and just looked at the statistics. But I don’t see a need to defend myself, and I am confident about the contributions I had on those teams.”
There was certainly another key person to visit with about the quality of Aikman’s play during this dynasty stretch and how the numbers aren’t exactly always to be taken at face value. That would be the offensive mastermind, and the guy often calling the plays. Norv Turner was the offensive coordinator from 1991 through 1993, and there are few men in this sport who have coached offense for longer with more franchise quarterbacks along the way. His words about the era are certainly worth considering.
“I just saw an article the other day, and you can look this up, that through most of his career, he was last in the NFL in passes attempted in the fourth quarter, and our style was not to go run it up or see how many passing touchdowns or passing yards we can get,” Turner said. “Our intention was to win the game, and we worked hard at that. Bill Belichick’s getting a lot of credit now for, ‘Hey, do what you have to do to win each game.’ Well, Jimmy was that way all the time I was with him. ‘Hey, what do we have to do to win this week?’ And that’s the way we approached it, so that’s the way he performed.
“The guys who coached against him, I know a couple of guys that coached him in the Pro Bowl, the guys who physically saw him — writers, coaches, players — would tell you he’s one of the best passers ever, one of the most accurate passers ever. The guys who are questioning him probably never saw him play; they’re looking at the numbers, and that’s not the way you evaluate players. I would tell you this: Right now, people are getting enamored with the numbers, but every quarterback in this league is going to have a lot of passing yards because that’s the way the game is being played now. That doesn’t mean they’re good quarterbacks. There are a lot of guys who are throwing for over 4,000 yards ,and they’re not playing winning football. Troy played winning football.”
I asked Norv to further elaborate on that point of “winning football” to explain what he meant and how vital it is to championships. “Troy, if you look at him and guys you want to evaluate and compare him to, he’s probably in the bottom third or last in passing yards in the fourth quarter. We weren’t behind a lot, and when we got ahead, we didn’t tend to throw the ball a lot,” Turner said. “There’s a lot of guys that are averaging 100 yards per game in the fourth quarter and it’s garbage time; it’s either up by two scores or down by 17, 21 points and people get enamored by those statistics, but a lot of times, they’re pretty meaningless.”
They aren’t meaningless if he is your fantasy quarterback, of course. But if the biggest and most important job of any QB is to put their team in position to win the game, then those yards are insignificant. One other key trait is an aversion to taking your team out of position to win by doing something that could be considered “dumb.”
Very few players did both so well. He made plays without making mistakes. The way Aikman saw his job description speaks volumes about how he played the game: “I think at the end of the day that the quarterback’s job is to win games,” he said. “That is ultimately everyone’s job, but more or less the QB is responsible for making sure that happens.”
(Photo: Mike Powell/Allsport)
The above discussion was certainly compelling, but it wasn’t what made me realize how mistaken I once was about his dossier.
Compelling arguments are best found in January of every year. In my mind, a dynasty will play most regular-season games in a position where they are a clear favorite against an overmatched opponent. The results matter and should be considered, but if you want to explain a player’s place in history, show me what they are doing in the postseason. The playoffs are where the mismatched opponents are home watching on their couches. It is quality versus quality. Heavyweight versus heavyweight. If you want to demonstrate what a player meant to his team, show me what he did in the playoffs.
And this is where Aikman’s resume should silence any doubter. I can only assume those doubters — those who dare compare him to Donovan McNabb, Vinny Testaverde or even get silly with Ryan Fitzpatrick — are simply unaware of the following truths.
Allow me to take you on a journey of unprecedented greatness from one of the greatest to ever lace them up. I’ll start with a question:
If you examine the resume of Aikman’s 12-year career, which of his seasons would you consider the very best of the bunch?
Would you pick 1992, when he had his career highs in yards and touchdowns? Or 1993, when he was dealing with the Emmitt Smith holdout and led the NFL in completion percentage? Maybe you would argue for 1994, when Jimmy Johnson and Norv Turner were gone, and he put up the best team numbers of the entire run on offense? Or possibly 1995, when he had the league’s lowest interception percentage?
I am sorry to say you are wrong on all of those.
Because the best season of Troy Aikman’s 12-year career would easily be the 13th season. And, by that, I mean the 16 playoff games through which he led the franchise. If you look at his career playoff performances — which constitute an entire NFL season on their own — you will find that his most prolific passing performances were always in January. Against the best opponents and with the highest stakes and pressure, Aikman shone brightest in his biggest games. If he was taking a backseat in October, it was because the team had options. But in January, they were only knocking out their capable and worthy opponents — those who had their own Hall of Fame quarterbacks, by the way — because Dallas’ QB had and delivered the goods when it mattered most. And that is a pretty special distinction that cements his place in football immortality.
From 1992-1995, the Cowboys’ quarterback had a playoff run of 11 games. In those 11, the Cowboys went 10-1, and the one loss was to the 49ers in what many call Aikman’s finest hour. They say that not for his statistics, but for his courageous performance in the face of adversity and the fight to the very end. But those 11 games were absolutely the finest sample of Aikman playing QB that you will find.
It measures up with any four-year run of playoff football that can be found in the long history of this sport. In other words, it isn’t just “good for Aikman.” It is great for any quarterback at any time in history.
Courtesy of ProFootballReference.com, here are those 11 passing performances Aikman put together during the dynasty years. Please notice the numbers, the completion percentages, the yardage, the passing touchdowns, the lack of interceptions, and yes, please notice how many games ended with a passer rating over 100:
Troy Aikman, post-season game log, 1992-1995
Now, you might notice the opponents in those 11 playoff games. You may remember their quarterbacks: Brett Favre (3), Steve Young (3), Jim Kelly (2), Randall Cunningham (2) and Neil O’Donnell. That list includes three Hall of Fame QBs, one who might be soon and O’Donnell. He was playing against great teams and had to be better than the Hall of Famers on the other side.
Here are their passing days during that stretch. You may notice that on 10 of the 11 occasions, Aikman had a better passing day than his opponent. The one exception is the single game he lost. In the others, he outplayed immortal quarterbacks on the biggest stages in January. That is meaningful.
Dallas Opponents, post-season game log, 1992-1995
Surely, this is a good spot to point out that this isn’t one on one basketball or boxing in which Aikman is defending Favre and vice versa. Huge marks should go to the Cowboys’ defensive players and coaches for never getting overrun by the opponent’s passing game and all of the takeaways they were able to generate along the way. But, in another sense, how often do we suggest that the team that will win this playoff game is the team that gets a bigger performance from their quarterback?
If you want a compelling argument for his resume, it would be his dominance over Favre, Young, Kelly and Cunningham during this stretch. If you want to see the totals, check it out below. This is not the work of a bus driver. In fact, if you want Aikman in your fantasy league, make it a playoff fantasy league and you might take him No. 1 overall – just as he was taken in real life!
TOTAL PASSING STATS, PLAYOFFS, 1992-1995 (11 games)
| Aikman | 228 | 334 | 2915 | 21 | 8 | 106.3 |
| Opponents | 241 | 421 | 2700 | 12 | 17 | 69.2 |
That is what you would call rising to the occasion and certainly not watching Emmitt Smith and the offensive line carry the team. Meanwhile, look at what Aikman’s contemporaries did! Goodness gracious, that isn’t going to win in the postseason. The excellent Cowboys defense certainly had something to do with that, but they were not alone. I wanted to ask both Aikman and Turner about this and how significant this particular stretch of greatness really is and how aware of it they were.
Norv knew it like it was the back of his hand, “I was totally aware of that and it was probably more by design than people would ever realize,” he said. “I mean, in the playoffs, you’re playing the best teams, and we were in a division where we were playing Philadelphia, who was a great defense at the time. The 49ers were still a dominant team. We played Green Bay. It was extremely competitive, and I think you had that balance and you had to be able to throw the football and make big plays in the passing game and that’s why we were successful in the playoffs through those years — obviously, Buffalo and their defense. We were successful because we did pretty much lead with the pass, and Emmitt was kind of the finisher.”
I asked Norv about the idea of trying to outlast those other quarterback greats and not making a fatal mistake in a huge playoff moment.
“No question,” he said. “I think that was one of Troy’s strengths anyways, but in those games, because of the people you’re talking about, you knew you were going to have to go score points, and we did do that. I mean, his first run in 1992 at the Super Bowl, I think that team averaged 35 points in those three games (actually, 38.6) and maybe more. I think he threw nine touchdowns or whatever that was (eight). It was pretty remarkable what he did. But he did that the whole time I was there.”
Aikman looks back at those games quite fondly: “It is what I am most proud of, quite honestly. My best games were in the biggest ones and on the biggest stages, and that is what I am really proud of when I look back.”
So, what about those other dynasties? Is it normal for those quarterbacks to be at their best with such routine and such superiority over the QB across the field in those settings? I thought it was worth taking a look at those snapshots from the others to help put Aikman’s 10-1 with nine different 100-passer rating days into perspective.
Bart Starr, 1961-1967
Starr was Troy Aikman before Troy Aikman. He played for Vince Lombardi, on a team that dominated on the ground, was loaded with Hall of Famers all over the field and never gave a playoff game away. The comps are pretty impressive, and the playoff format back then meant you could win five titles and only play in nine playoff games along the way. Of those nine elimination games against top talent — including two close wins against the Cowboys — Starr was pretty great in some pretty lousy conditions (the Ice Bowl and the 1965 Championship Game against Cleveland were both far from good conditions to throw). 14 touchdowns, only five interceptions and a passer rating 98 or above on five occasions is salty indeed for that era. The 1966 NFL Championship game in Fair Park was his gem, with four touchdowns on the road in a thriller against the Cowboys.
Terry Bradshaw, 1974-1979
I am sure it won’t be lost on Cowboys fans how great Bradshaw, just like Starr, seemed to be when he played against Dallas — especially in Super Bowl 13. Two of his very best passer-rating days came against Dallas in two Super Bowls, and as you can see, Bradshaw was over 100 in all four Super Bowls that he won (the games notated with the “N” for neutral field by the opponent). Of all of the dynasty quarterbacks on this list, though, Bradshaw had the lowest cumulative passer rating, the lowest completion percentage and definitely the highest interception numbers. You can also see that he didn’t complete more than 19 passes in a game on this entire list save for a playoff game against Miami in 1979. He did a lot of great things for the Steelers, but you can definitely see some issues with his individual performances, especially in those 1974 and 1975 title runs.
Joe Montana, 1984-1990
He is Joe Montana. He doesn’t require a whole lot of explanation, and his numbers don’t require much massaging. His reputation speaks for itself, and his place in history is more than secure. Those Super Bowl performances were so good, and the entire runs of 1988 and 1989 were off the charts from a quarterback standpoint. I might nitpick about the three straight defeats in 1985 through 1987, when he had some really rough days against Bill Parcells a few times – the one coach who seemed to have some answers for Bill Walsh – but there isn’t much there. I did talk to Troy about Joe and since I had never heard this before, I thought you might like it, too:
“In 1993, the Chiefs played in the championship game against the Bills,” Aikman said. “I remember going into that day thinking, ‘You know, I don’t know if we are going to win our game or not against San Francisco, but God, I hope the Chiefs don’t beat the Bills.’ Because I just did not want to face Joe Montana – not that I would be facing him, but our defense would be. He was the one and only quarterback that I didn’t want to play in a playoff game because I held him in such high regard. I just figured that Joe would figure out a way to get it done. So I remember thinking I don’t want to face Joe in a Super Bowl. Those other guys, Jim and Steve and Brett, they were all friends and good guys. But even in my early years in playoff games, I never viewed it as a daunting task to play against them.”
Tom Brady, 2001-2004
And now, Tom Brady. The Patriots are the only other team to say they won three Super Bowls in four years and it was during this stretch from 2001 through 2004. (The Lombardi Packers lose that on a technicality of not calling the 1965 Championship Game a Super Bowl.) It took place during the start of Tom Brady’s career, and let’s not forget Drew Bledsoe actually played a lot of that 2001 AFC Championship Game (and threw the lone touchdown in that game). Brady, though, was magnificent in the Super Bowls against Carolina and Philadelphia, and by the time 2003 and 2004 rolled around, he was playing very well and leading this team to a 9-0 stretch in four years. Now, his efficiency was not quite as good as Aikman’s for most of the stretch, but he was obviously growing into his powers as a very young man. And note the idea that the best way to win playoff games is not to give them away: Brady threw just three interceptions in nine playoff games. This is the common denominator through all of these runs for all of these teams.
That is how Norv Turner always compares Brady and Aikman. “I think you trust the players in that situation, and Troy had a great understanding of how to play the game and win,” Turner said. “That came from Coach Johnson, from me coaching, but also it has to do with the player and not being selfish, not being greedy, understanding what you have to do to win. I see it very similar when Brady plays, they’re not by any means conservative, and they actually are very aggressive. We were very aggressive, but we trusted our players and certainly trusted Troy that he was going to make good decisions and he was so accurate with the ball that we were going to eliminate mistakes.”
Tom Brady, 2014-2018
Let’s be honest. The fact that a quarterback is able to pull off a second dynastic run at the ages of 37 through 41 is flat-out bonkers, and we don’t even know if it is over yet. In fact, common sense says we should probably assume it is not. And, as you can see here, he has developed enough as a quarterback that now the Patriots are pretty much asking him to be their entire offense at times as his passing numbers have soared to having two playoff runs recently when his yards per game is over 375! Three multi-interception games must be considered, but, in that Patriots way, they still won two of them and winning in Arrowhead this year against the Chiefs was one of the best wins Brady and Belichick ever pulled off. Tom’s play down the stretch at 41 years old will probably never be forgotten.
If we were to put those six dynasties together on one chart and look at the cumulative quarterback performances, it would look like this:
| Green Bay | Starr | 1961 | 1967 | 9 | 9 | 0 | 132 | 224 | 58.9 | 1619 | 14 | 5 | 25 | 97 |
| Pittsburgh | Bradshaw | 1974 | 1979 | 15 | 13 | 2 | 210 | 365 | 57.5 | 2995 | 24 | 18 | 19 | 87.1 |
| San Francisco | Montana | 1984 | 1989 | 12 | 9 | 3 | 258 | 417 | 61.9 | 3102 | 27 | 12 | 25 | 95.7 |
| Dallas | Aikman | 1992 | 1995 | 11 | 10 | 1 | 233 | 346 | 67.3 | 2867 | 22 | 8 | 24 | 105.9 |
| New England | Brady | 2001 | 2004 | 9 | 9 | 0 | 200 | 325 | 61.5 | 1945 | 12 | 3 | 15 | 88.1 |
| New England | Brady | 2014 | 2018 | 14 | 12 | 2 | 417 | 643 | 64.9 | 4716 | 31 | 12 | 22 | 95.7 |
This chart is the most compelling case for Troy Aikman’s spot in football immortality. Sure, Donovan McNabb can show you stats that prop up his career and tear down Aikman from the regular season. But he hardly could put two great consecutive playoff performances together in his career, let alone a four-year stretch that might be the greatest playoff run ever.
Aikman climbed into the ring with Steve Young, Brett Favre, Jim Kelly and Randall Cunningham over a four-year stretch – multiple times each to erase the chance of a fluke – and knew that if he didn’t out-play the quarterback across the field, his team wasn’t going to win the title. Yet, in nearly every case, he did it. There is a quarterback reason the Cowboys won three Lombardi Trophies during that stretch, and we wonder what the total might have been with Jimmy Johnson during the whole stretch. (Few dynasties attempt a head coaching change midway through it.)
Overrated? Please. This playoff resume is not that of a quarterback his team is carrying along. The evidence is clear to see now that I have spent enough time in the sport to know what I am looking at. I understand this not being clear to all before diving into this investigation. I was once guilty of spending too much time lost in my fantasy football numbers. Norv got a kick out of that. “Everybody’s throwing it a heck of a lot more now and it’s an exciting style of ball,” he said. “But like I say, the teams that win aren’t worrying about fantasy football.”
Then the coach wrapped it up like this without really being asked another question about Aikman.
“The one thing I’ll say, it’s not an accident that Troy was a first-ballot Hall of Fame guy,” he added. “The people who covered the Cowboys, the people who covered the NFL, players and coaches were 100 percent behind that selection. It’s a shame, it’s just like Bart Starr. This younger group, they look at the stats and Bart Starr and then you look the way he played and performed in the playoffs, you say, ‘Yeah, no wonder he’s a Hall of Fame quarterback.’ It’s just a whole different evaluation … It’s still about performance and a guy’s ability and No. 1 — and it always will be No. 1 — is winning games.”
“I’m glad you’re calling, and I love to do this. But people who know football, I don’t think they feel there’s any reason he needs to be defended.”
