Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin offered up their perspectives on the Dallas Cowboys recent struggles

The Dallas Cowboys played miserably on Thursday night and as a result the world is dunking all over them.

You can’t walk down the street corner without finding someone who believes that Jason Garrett is unfit for his job or that Jerry Jones is running a well-oiled machine. Things are bad. Very bad. They’re so bad that even two of the franchise’s most beloved players of all time had to offer up some real talk about it.

First there was quarterback Troy Aikman who had the misfortune of calling, describing, and analyzing the beatdown that Dallas took against the Chicago Bears. On the FOX post-game show Aikman was critical of the Cowboys and spared no blame. He put it on everybody.

“I don’t know how you come back from this. I really don’t, Joe. For the last two weeks we’ve heard from them that they were going to get it going, they had a chance at home against the Buffalo Bills to finally beat a team with a winning record. That didn’t happen. They got embarrassed in that game.”

“They come here against a team that had a lot to prove but was struggling in a lot of areas, and it was the same old story. So yes even though we knew before this game kicked off that it didn’t matter if they lost, they were still going to be in contention. I don’t know how you sell that if you’re Jason Garrett or Jerry Jones or anyone. When you have a performance like that to say ‘Hey! But we’re still alive. We’ll go play this week against the Rams and it’s all right out in front of us.’”

“I don’t think the players hear that. I wouldn’t hear it if I were them. And this is on the players as much as it is on the coaches. They’ve got to be better. I’m not sure I’d even talk to the team this week. I’d just say, ‘Let’s just go play next week and you guys figure it out.’ But the talk is over and it has been over for a while.”

It’s hard to find anything wrong with what Aikman said. He’s right that this situation is too bad for even Jerry Jones to spin, the facts are what they are at this point.

While Aikman was certainly more critical of the Cowboys that has never been the style of Michael Irvin. The Playmaker is part of NFL Network’s pre- and post-game coverage and was on hand for the loss as well (sigh). He was asked point blank after the game if he thought that change was necessary and even he, the biggest Cowboys supporter there is, acknowledged that it is time.

“I absolutely think the world of Coach Garrett personally, but I don’t know how you continue down this road with what you’ve seen on the field the last two games.”

If there is anyone that Jerry Jones listens to, it’s his former superstars that have gone on to achieve great things in their post-football lives (so much because of the greatness that they built while playing for the Cowboys). To have such iconic alumni of the organization saying things like this, well, it’s embarrassing to be honest.

Will it be enough for Jerry Jones to take action? These aren’t words that either Aikman or Irvin would say on television lightly, the time has come. There only seems to be one person that disagrees with that.