Wednesday, September 30, 1998

These Cowboys are a hard team to figure

By DENNE H. FREEMAN AP Sports Writer

IRVING, Tex. (AP) - The Dallas Cowboys have a split personality.

One week Troy Aikman is leading them to a convincing win over the Arizona Cardinals and the following week the team is hammered by the Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos.

The next week backup quarterback Jason Garrett takes them to a road win over the New York Giants and the next week they stumble by one point at home to the Oakland Raiders.

Chan Gailey, the rookie head coach is looking for consistency. Instead, he's riding a rollercoaster.

This week against Washington the Cowboys face a winless team with Garrett coming off his first NFL loss as a starter, a game in which he threw two interceptions.

"Everbody has bad games but you can't let that make you gun shy," Gailey said on Tuesday. "Jason is smart enough to realize that to help the team he just needs to go play. That's what I will tell Jason...go play hard."

Gailey said playing quarterback is the hardest NFL job.

"You've got to be mentally tough and that's one of the things everybody believes about Jason is that he's that way," Gailey said. "We have no qualms that he will saddle up and let it go."

Aikman has targeted the Oct. 11 Carolina game for his return from a broken collarbone suffered against Denver.

Gailey, trying to instill discipline in a team that fell apart in a 6-10 season under Barry Switzer, said the Cowboys lack the consistency to be a top drawer team.

"I harp on the consistency factor and we'll keep working on it," Gailey said. "We do good things then we offset that with bad decisions."

Gailey said the Cowboys are playing a dangerous team trying to dig out of an 0-4 hole.

"If you get down a couple of games in the division it makes it hard to get back," Gailey said. "They'll be scratching and clawing. If they lose they'll be in a bind and we will too. You look at them on tape and you see they are a good team."

He said he was well aware of the bitter Dallas-Washington rivalry but added "it seems every team in the division hates us more than anybody. We seem to be big rivals with everybody. I guess it's understandable with the success the Cowboys have had through the years."

Gailey is once again resorting to a practice tactic he used before the Cowboys traveled to Denver, rolling out loudspeakers to get the team used to noise.

"We'll work with noise again because we'll assume it will be loud," Gailey said.