Former NFL quarterback Troy Aikman is familiar with bad Dallas Cowboys teams. In his first season as a Cowboys starter, the Cowboys posted an 0-11 record in his starts in 1989.

So he clearly understands what this season’s 3-6 Cowboys team is going through.

“That’s the hard part. I’ve been on teams that were kind of out at this point in the season, and that’s not much fun,” Aikman said during ESPN’s Monday Night Football Kickoff broadcast.

Aikman and the Cowboys entered the 1989 season with low expectations. That’s in stark contrast to this 2024 team, which thought it was a playoff contender.

The Cowboys, who played the Houston Texans on Monday night, are in third place in the NFC East and have a long shot to make the playoffs. They need to put together a long winning streak through the final eight games of the season and do it behind backup quarterback Cooper Rush, who replaced Dak Prescott. Prescott was injured on November 3 against Atlanta and will not return this season.

“A team that certainly came in with high expectations relied on a lot of young players,” Aikman said of this season’s squad. “That’s where this really started to unravel. They were not active in free agency. They lost some key players. They lost several offensive linemen and replaced them with two rookies. That didn’t go as well as hoped. They had to rely on some other young players who they believed would develop and become a bigger part of the solution. And that didn’t happen. So some of the questions coming this year are still question marks.

“They failed to run the football. Now they are without their franchise quarterback.”

Aikman said that while the players are “optimistic” about beating Houston on Monday, the players and management “more than likely know they are not going anywhere.”