Monday, September 21, 1998

Oh, how Cowboys have fallen since they last played Giants on Monday night

By Gary Myers

New York Daily News

(KRT)

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - This doesn't figure to be a good day for a couple of guys from Arkansas. The President will be in the spotlight this morning when the videotape of his grand jury testimony is released. And the owner of a former Super Bowl champion may be in for a forgettable evening at Giants Stadium.

President Clinton has been elected twice. Jerry Jones has won three Super Bowls. But these are not the banner days for either one. Dallas is coming off a 6-10 season, its first losing year since 1990, and the only thing the Cowboys have led the league in recently is image-crushing off-the-field problems.

The 'Boys are back in town Monday night against the Giants and first place in the NFC East is at stake. But it will be Jason Garrett, making the third start of his career, in place of Troy Aikman, who is out 4-8 weeks with a broken clavicle. By no means is this the same team that won three Super Bowls. Even with Aikman, making the playoffs would have been a longshot.

"I felt last year was an aberration," Jones insisted. "It was a missed opportunity, not a bottoming out. I never thought we would have a healthy Troy Aikman and not have a chance to win the Super Bowl. I don't think this is arebuilding time at all. I think we are a team that has talent and with a healthy Troy Aikman, we have the ability to compete for the Super Bowl."

The last time the Cowboys played the Giants here in a Monday night game they demolished them, 35-0, in the '95 season opener on the way to their third Super Bowl title in four years.

And Jones upstaged Phil Simms Night by thrusting himself into the spotlight. Jones had just completed a maverick marketing deal with Nike and spent part of the game on the sidelines with its head, Phil Knight, and tennis star Monica Seles. The cameras were focused just as much on Jones as on the players. Jones plans on being low-key tonight.

"I don't have anything planned other than hopefully Jason Garrett will put that surprise on them," Jones said. "I hope he has a big day and throws about four or five touchdown passes. That will get them as excited as we did on the sideline."

Jones has worked to clean up the Cowboys' off-the-field problems. On the field, he replaced Barry Switzer with Chan Gailey, a no-nonsense coach with an imaginative offense.

"I regret Barry Switzer's tenure here ended at 6-10. We worked well together," Jones said. "If anybody had a more successful four years in the NFL, I want to talk to him."

But the Switzer era - one Super Bowl title, one NFC Championship Game loss - had to end. Jones knew it. Switzer knew it. Aikman knew it. "There needed to be a change," Jones said. "Barry convinced me. I concurred. Obviously, Troy had certainly become concerned in regard to Barry or just in general with our team. That's a very real thing."

If Switzer hadn't fired himself, it's hard to believe Jones wouldn't have, although he refuses to admit it. The Cowboys were a team out of control under Switzer. "I do not hold Barry responsible for that," Jones said. "We've had off-the-field instances in the organization since the beginning, long before I was here. It's been well-documented. That is not an excuse."

A couple of days before camp opened this year, Switzer said the problems would have happened no matter who was coaching. A couple of weeks later, the Cowboys experienced Scissor Gate. Everett McIver, a former Jet, suffered a two-inch cut on his neck after a dorm incident, reportedly involving Michael Irvin.

"We were certainly aware how that might be perceived," Jones said. "We basically felt it was an accident as a result of horseplay. Neither player was aware Everett was cut until they saw the blood. It was not a stab. It was an accident."

Too bad there was no videotape.

(c) 1998, New York Daily News.

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