Troy Aikman goes scorched earth while calling out Cowboys' lack of effort

The Dallas Cowboys are an easy target right now. And while most would argue that the Cowboys are kind of always an easy target, that's especially true after suffering one of the more embarrassing losses of the NFL season this past week, losing by three scores at home to the Lions.

They now go into their bye week 3-3, which probably isn't quite the disaster that everyone's treating it as – but that's life with the Dallas Cowboys. And to make matters worse, one of their loudest critics this week just happens to be one of the greatest players in the history of the Cowboys, who's now one-half of the most high-profile broadcasting gig in professional sports. Football season sure is fun!

This week, Aikman went on a local radio station and made some headlines – that seems to be the theme of the Cowboys' bye – and absolutely ripped the wide receivers. When I say "absolutely ripped," I know it's tempting to just take that as another example of overwrought blog language. But reader, I am extremely serious – Aikman absolutely ripped them apart. It's not pretty.

Troy Aikman calls Cowboys' wide receivers 'lazy' and 'terrible'

"I think the routes are terrible. I think they run terrible routes," Aikman told 96.7 The Ticket in Dallas. "And I've thought that beyond this year. I think CeeDee (Lamb) has got to improve in his route running. As a quarterback, if you're not certain where guys are going to be consistently, it's hard to play the position. That's what I see. I see guys lazy coming off the line of scrimmage. Sometimes they run, usually if they do, it's because they're anticipating they're going to get the football on that play, but if they're not, they don't. And it all ties together. I'm not impressed with that part of it."

Sheeeeeesh. And that's not even the whole quote! He actually has *more* to say. That's how ugly things have been through the first six weeks this year, and it's not even the most bombastic radio interview in Cowboys land this week.

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"Former player thinks he and his teammates could do better" isn't exactly a new bit in the NFL, but when it comes to the Cowboys' wideouts, Aikman's not totally wrong.

According to ESPN's Receiver Scores – a relatively new metric they made to better understand WR performance – none of Dallas' pass catchers are playing particularly well this year.

Broadly speaking, Reciever Scores are broken down into four categories: Open Rating, Catch Rating, YAC Rating, and Overall Rating. Of the three Cowboys' pass catchers that qualify, here's how they rank league-wide:

Jalen Tolbert: 21st Open, 5th (!) Catch, 66th YAC, 15th Overall
CeeDee Lamb: 49th Open, 89th Catch, 7th YAC, 54th Overall
Jake Furgeson: 92nd Open, 45th Catch, 60th YAC, 90th Overall

Pro Football Focus sees the same thing: the site has Lamb ranked 48th, Furgeson 35th, and Tolbert 69th. It's one of the rare instances where the eye test and the analytics overwhelmingly match up. So was Aikman's radio rant necessary? Maybe not. But he certainly wasn't wrong.