A potential future candidate for the Cowboys’ general manager position, Troy Aikman, has recently closed the door on exploring that career option.
The Dallas Cowboys may see a change in head coach in the next few years depending on the team’s playoff results, but team owner Jerry Jones may stay the franchise’s general manager for a long, long time.
It’s not just that Jones has presumably scattered Horcruxes around the league, a la Voldermort, to ensure he lives on forever.
One of the top candidates for Jones’ job, longtime broadcaster and Hall-of-Famer Troy Aikman, has pulled his horse out of the race.
Aikman, who played quarterback for the Cowboys from 1989 to 2000, enjoyed quite the run for America’s favorite team, leading Dallas to three Super Bowl championships in the ’90s.
The 56-year-old reflected on his post-NFL career thus far and came to the conclusion that becoming a general manager at this point in his life just wasn’t in the cards for him.
"“There’s still a part of me, I think, that down the road — the talk has always come up about whether or not I want to be a general manager. And I think that has passed. But there may come a time that I’d be interested in just helping out with a club, with an organization, and not necessarily in an official capacity.”"
Troy Aikman dismisses rumors of becoming Cowboys general manager
After hanging up his cleats in 2000, Aikman quickly pivoted to a job in broadcasting, joining Fox the year after.
He and Joe Buck anchored Fox’s NFL division and became the second-longest broadcast team to call NFL games; Buck has since left Fox to helm ESPN’s Monday Night Football booth last season.
Aikman’s ruminations on the future will sadden Cowboys fans hoping to see him take on a front-office job with the team with which he won six NFC East titles and advanced to four NFC Championship games.
Aikman did say he may help out with an organization in some “capacity” in the future, maybe as a general advisor or working at a to-be-created position within the given franchise.
He touched upon how much he loves living in Dallas, so the assumption is that if he were to leapfrog from booth duties to an NFL organization, it would be the Cowboys. Don’t start digging Jerry Jones’ grave just yet, though.