Cold Attack Comes Under Fire in Dallas : NFL: Some Cowboys players have criticized the offense. Coach Johnson isn’t happy, either, but he defended the assistant who designed it.

The David Shula-coordinated Dallas offense is being criticized by some of the Cowboys and Coach Jimmy Johnson isn’t real happy with it himself.

Johnson backed Shula on Tuesday, however, saying “he’s an intelligent coach, hard-working and dedicated. He’s working at it.”

Johnson tried to cool down a dressing room debate by two of his top players on Tuesday.

Both quarterback Troy Aikman and running back Emmitt Smith criticized the offense, which set a club record by going two consecutive games without a touchdown.

Smith said he didn’t understand why he only carried the ball six times in a 24-6 loss to San Francisco while Aikman said “something’s got to be changed.”

“The offense is behind what I hoped it would be at this stage,” Johnson said. “I’m not overly alarmed.”

Johnson said Smith was “upset because he didn’t touch the football and I feel the same way as Emmitt. I want him to have the football more than six times.”

Against the 49ers, Dallas managed only one first down and 14 yards of offense in the second half.

“One of the problems was we couldn’t convert on third down,” Johnson said. “We only had four possessions in the second half.”

At one point, Johnson became nettled by the questioning of his offense during his weekly press conference and asked a reporter: “What would you like for us to run?”

Asked if too much was being expected of a team that went 1-15 in Johnson’s rookie year as head coach, he replied, “No, I expected us to be a much better football team than we are.”

Johnson said the Cowboys needed to do a better job of keeping things in perspective.

“That was San Francisco we played and they do have a pretty good football team,” he said.

Johnson deflected criticism from his offense by saying “the defense is ahead of schedule. It’s more than we might have expected when the season started.