By Scott Boyter/Editor

Former Cowboy quarterback Troy Aikman and head coach Jimmy Johnson fielded questions on the upcoming NFL season. Here’s the first installment of what the current NFL on FOX analysts said.

To what degree do you think the potential of a lockout next year will have an effect on what we see late this season?
TROY: I don’t know that it will be a lot different. It’s always a challenge for coaches of teams that aren’t playing well to get guys motivated to go out and play and fight through injuries. I don’t see that being a factor any more so than any other year. Players make it to this level for a reason; they’re competitive, and they take pride in what they do. If they’re in a position to accomplish something that’ll last the rest of their lives, I think they put everything else aside. If you’re not in that position, then yeah, self-interest could come into play.

JIMMY: I agree. I think it depends on the individual person, regardless whether or not there’s going to be a lockout. They could have a broken leg and want to play, regardless of their contract, whether or not their team is in it, or whatever. And then there are other individuals who are always looking to get out of something; always looking for an excuse. Those individuals will be concerned about their contract situations and a lockout, and they’ll probably be trying to get out of something.

Troy and Jimmy, you guys obviously know how it is in Dallas; people are either talking Super Bowl or it’s a sign of the Apocalypse. What end of the spectrum do you think the Cowboys are at?
JIMMY: You can’t be impressed with what the Cowboys have done in the preseason, but make no mistake about it; talent wins games. And they are a talented football team; extremely talented on defense. But it’s the intangibles that give you consistency. Work ethic, toughness, chemistry on the team allow you to play well week in and week out.

I think the Cowboys are talented enough to turn it on once the season starts, but I don’t know if they’ll have the consistency. Look at Indianapolis; they never play really well during preseason, but when they’re starters are out there they play pretty well. I’m just a little bit concerned about how the Cowboys struggled offensively. They’ve got talented running backs and skill people, but I’m concerned about whether or not the offensive line can open up holes in the running game and protect Tony Romo.

TROY: People react that way in every NFL city, not just Dallas. But as far as the Cowboys are concerned, I agree with Jimmy that the offensive line a big question mark, and has been throughout the preseason.

But unless you’re Green Bay or New Orleans, nobody’s really looked good on offense. It’s been a struggle. What I’ve seen this preseason that’s different from years past is it used to be that coaches tended to have an understanding that they wouldn’t bring blitzes; if they did, they would be real vanilla. Then they’d pick it up a little more with the second game and then more for the next game.

But this year, from the very first preseason game I watched, I saw a lot of defenses really coming after the quarterbacks. So from that standpoint alone, we’ve seen very few offenses have success throughout this year’s preseason games. So I wouldn’t get too concerned about it.

When you’re not playing well at this time of year, and you’re the quarterback and you’re asked about it, you don’t say, ‘Look, we’re just not going to be very good this year.’ You also don’t say that if you’re a coach – you always look at the positive. But what I’m hearing a lot of throughout the league is, ‘We haven’t game planned, so we’re not giving ourselves much of a chance.’ There’s a lot of truth to those comments, but with some of these teams – and Dallas is one of those right now – there are some real issues.

If [the Cowboys] can shore up the protection side of it, they’re just too good. They’re too good at the skill positions not to be pretty explosive. But we all know that doesn’t really matter if you’re not afforded the protection you need to get the ball to those people. And that’s going to be a real concern in Dallas until proven otherwise.

Can you talk about the Saints trying to buck the odds and repeat? What are their biggest obstacles?
TROY: First of all, they’ve got to concentrate on defending the division title. And that hasn’t happened in the NFC South in a long time.

Drew Brees asked me shortly before camp if I had any advice regarding defending a title. I said first and foremost, the reason so few teams can do it is because it’s so hard to win one in the first place. It’s extremely difficult, even more so to do it again. When you have guys coming back, then you go into mini-camps and practice and someone does something that isn’t done quite right, you don’t pay quite as much attention to it as you did the previous year. There’s a tendency – it’s not complacency – but there’s a tendency to look at that player and say, ‘He’ll be fine. He’s proven he can do it.’ So you don’t put as much emphasis on getting it right the first time. There has to be more self-awareness regarding how you’re playing.

When we were able to repeat, we worked as hard if not harder. A lot of it had to do with Jimmy, and a lot of it had to do with the players we had. When we started going downhill, even with the same guys in place, it was because we didn’t put enough emphasis on the little things. Then those little things started to mount up where they were big things, and instead of going 12-4 we were going 10-6 then 9-7.

Five or six new teams every year seem to make the playoffs that didn’t make it the year before, so obviously five or six teams don’t make it that did make it the year before. That just underscores more how difficult it is to remain a contender.

That being said, though, while I talk about it being tough, I also believe most organizations fail to go about winning the right way. At the end of the day, talent wins, but you also have to have good coaching. If you make good decisions – unemotional decisions – on your own people, then in some ways it’s maybe easier to win these days because so few teams are capable of doing that.

JIMMY: I visited with both Sean Payton and [defensive coordinator] Greg Williams about this, and I told them the same thing I told Bill Belichick when we were fishing after the first time he won a Super Bowl. The downfall of any successful organization, team or company is when you have success, you come back and all of a sudden it’s all about the individual – the secretaries want a raise, the assistants want more money, players want new contracts. It becomes a ‘What about me?’ situation. You’ve got to get away from that.

Just like Troy said, assistant coaches sometimes assume that the starters are great players and will get it done. You’ve obviously got to coach your backups, but you can’t neglect the people who have done it before. Veterans have to work harder the older they get if they’re going to improve. If you assume anything, you’re going to have problems.

But in watching New Orleans and talking to their coaches, they’re as unselfish a team as I’ve seen in a long time. They’ve got a chance to repeat.

With free agency and the salary cap, there’s more of a premium on coaching. In the old days, rookies didn’t even see the field for a couple of years. When I coached, you might see a rookie playing if he was really special. But with the salary cap, everything is different. You’re not going to keep a lot of your highly-paid veterans, so you’ll have to play some rookies.

That’s why there’s such a premium on good coaches – more so than it’s ever been. It’s proven out when you look at the records at the end of the year. The top organizations and top coaches may not win it all, but they’re going to be pretty good. The ones that struggle seem to struggle every year.