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Don't go jumping on the bandwagon quite yet

By Kevin Lyons

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

(KRT)

IRVING, Texas - Before you pronounce the home team well, before you get too giddy about how the 'Boys handled a team that was an eyelash away from making the Super Bowl last year, listen to Troy Aikman.

And listen well.

"Let's not overanalyze this," Aikman said. "It's a win. Next week, if we lose, you guys will be calling us a bunch of punks."

The message: Don't get too carried away with Cowboys 26, Jaguars 22.

Yes, the Cowboys, playing without Mark Tuinei, Daryl Johnston, and Chad Hennings, showed that a heart still beats in this once proud champion. Yes, old pros such as Herschel Walker and Tony Tolbert, and new ones such as Stepfret Williams and Omar Stoutmire (he did look like Everson Walls wearing No. 24, didn't he?) showed a Texas Stadium crowd that there is more to this team than Emmitt, Michael, Troy, and Deion.

But to say that the Cowboys' future looks bright would be to forget the not-so-distant past. After thumping Pittsburgh on the road in the season opener, the Cowboys suddenly had a case of the whoopsies. Losses to Arizona, Washington, and the New York Giants were marred by goofball mistakes this club did not make in the early 1990s.

And despite scoring touchdowns from distances long (see Walker) and short (see Emmitt, finally), the Cowboys - who are at Philadelphia and San Francisco the next two weeks - still have a lot to fix. Namely, the running game and the anemic pass rush.

On Sunday, the usually solid defense nearly suffered a meltdown as missed tackles by Brock Marion and shaky pass defense by, gasp, Deion Sanders and Kevin Smith, helped the Jaguars turn a 19-7 deficit into a 22-19 lead during a six-minute span of the third and fourth quarters.

With a 12-point lead in the second half, the old Cowboys and Emmitt Smith would have run the expansion Jaguars out of Texas Stadium. But, as Aikman and company keep trying to tell us, these are not the old Cowboys.

So you know a changing of the guard is upon us when the Jaguars nearly win despite having nearly as many penalty yards (98) as the Cowboys had rushing yards (99).

"I truly don't know if this says anything about this team other than we took the first step in a long journey," wide receiver Michael Irvin said.

Said guard Nate Newton: "It's just one game, let's not get too excited. See, that's what happened after we beat Pittsburgh. Everyone went riding high."

Still, as Cowboys scouting director Larry Lacewell said outside of the winning coaches' locker room, "We stopped the bleeding - that's what's important. You start thinking, mentally, we can get this done, that we can make the plays when we have too."

The Cowboys seemed headed to their first three-game losing streak in seven years after Jaguars wide receiver Keenan McCardell (seven receptions, 120 yards) beat Kevin Smith to give the Jaguars a three-point lead with less than nine minutes to play.

But instead of collapsing under pressure, the Cowboys showed the kind of grit that we saw regularly of this team in come-from-behind victories against Atlanta, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Arizona last season.

On Sunday, it was 35-year-old Herschel Walker, who had replaced Johnston at fullback, taking Aikman's short pass and breaking four tackles on his way to the game-winning 64-yard touchdown. It was 29-year-old defensive end Tony Tolbert, who has the knees of a 59-year-old, forcing Brunell off balance and into a bad throw as the Jaguars neared scoring territory on their last drive. And it was 23-year-old rookie Stoutmire, replacing ailing safety Darren Woodson, who hauled in Brunell's errant throw to seal the victory.

"We did something today that we hadn't done when we lost," Cowboys coach Barry Switzer said. "Some old men made some plays in the second half for us and we won the football game."

Whether or not that translates into a run of victories remains to be seen.

"The answer to our question on character of the team will be at the end," Irvin said. "We have our backs against the wall at (4-3) and have to work. I would like to say, 'Yeah, it shows character.' But if we lose the next nine games, it doesn't answer anything. It's just a start to the answer of that question. It's a good win, a needed win so we can look at the others."

(c) 1997, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

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