A Rough Start for Aikman

Shortly after quarterback Troy Aikman had been pulled from the football game early in the fourth quarter Sunday, Babe Laufenberg walked over to the Cowboys rookie and whispered a few words of consolation.

“I told him, ‘Troy, you don’t ever pull the other 10 people out, you pull out the quarterback,’ ” said Laufenberg, the vagabond backup who is No. 3 here now and didn’t even put on a uniform Sunday against one of his former teams.

“It’s not like you have a car with a flat tire, and you change tires and you roll on down the road. It ain’t that easy in football. Troy knows that. When you play the position, you accept it. If things are going badly, you’re the guy who has to go.”

Aikman insisted he had no problems with Coach Jimmy Johnson’s decision to give backup Steve Walsh some work, particularly after Aikman managed only six completions in 21 attempts for 83 yards, was intercepted twice, sacked four times and harassed as long as he played in a 30-7 loss to the Washington Redskins.

“I have no problems with that,” Aikman said of the switch to Walsh. “Any time the offense is struggling, you make a change. ... I understand the nature of pro football. We weren’t moving the football. I understood when he made me the starter there would be days like this.

“Any time you don’t put points on the board, as a quarterback you feel like it’s your responsibility. ... But there’s a lot of football left this season. We have to work harder. Everybody knew it wasn’t going to be easy, that we’d have some bad times before we got better.”

Clearly, for the Cowboys, these are the worst of times. They are 0-3 for the first time since 1963, and they are reeling. It’s also not going to get much better, with a home game next week against the undefeated Giants and the 49ers arriving two weeks later.

They also must contend with a very unhappy football coach. Johnson was talking gloom and doomsday Sunday evening, starting off his postgame news conference by saying the obvious: “We’re not a good football team right now. It’s not a good feeling. We will not accept being a poor football team. We’ll work and do whatever it takes. Anyone who is not willing to work, let me know. I feel sure they will work.”

Asked if he would try to avoid discussing Sunday’s debacle, Johnson snapped: “I don’t want these players to forget how awful they looked. We are not a good football team and they shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking otherwise. ... They’ve got to realize they have to move up to a new level. We can’t live with it. I certainly can’t live with it. ... We have to work harder.

“We’ll spend more time on the field, more time in the meeting room, more time running after practice.”

Johnson also said Aikman would continue to be the starter and he did not hold him entirely responsible for an offense that managed only 10 first downs, 190 yards and 3.2 yards per play.

Walsh, meanwhile, was simply grateful for the chance to play a bit. It was his first action of the regular season, and he has made it known he would prefer to be playing regularly elsewhere by the time the NFL’s trading deadline comes on Oct. 17.

The Cowboys have talked to a number of teams about Walsh, but also are asking a steep price, a No. 1 pick and at least two players who can come in and play right away. Johnson has said he does not want to trade Walsh, who played for him at the University of Miami, and the backup said Sunday, “I don’t expect them to make a move.

“One thing I want to say about the whole thing: I never demanded to be traded. But I do feel with the trading deadline coming up, it’s an opportunity, an option the Cowboys have.”

Walsh said he was delighted to get a little playing time, even with his team hopelessly out of the game by the time he arrived.

“I think it was done more to give me some experience. I’m grateful for that and I felt really good about some of the things I did, and I could have done some other things better. ... When you get out there, everybody is more intense and things happen quicker.

“But Troy’s the number one quarterback, and I don’t really expect” to be challenging for the starting job.

The Cowboys also didn’t expect to score their only points on yet another bizarre play yielded by the Redskins. It came midway through the first quarter, when quarterback Mark Rypien was hit from the blind side by free safety Ray Horton and fumbled. The ball was picked up by defensive end Jim Jeffcoat and returned 77 yards for a touchdown and a 7-7 tie.

“We had an all-out blitz on, and we had good coverage,” Horton said. “I made the hit and the ball popped loose.”

Said Jeffcoat: “When I saw Ray Horton coming from the back side, I was going to shed my tackle because I thought Rypien was going to scramble my way. When I shed him, Ray had just hit him and the ball came out. I just picked it up and ran. ... I knew it was there. Any time I get an open field, I’m going to score.”