dbair1967

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Cowboys Camp Report, Day Three: The Kids Pad Their Chances

Posted by Rafael at Wednesday, August 01, 2012

The pads came on today the team held a spirited three-hour practice that showed some positions of concern may not be so dire, while some others may be getting thin -- for now.

On offense, the unsung receiving corps showed some life, and some depth. Miles Austin made the most spectacular catch of the day, leaping to snag a Tony Romo floater out of the slot between slot back Mario Butler. His counterpart, Dez Bryant, continues to channel the anger and angst of his pre-camp legal problems into his game. He's been the bull of the passing game, a hard-charging beast no corner can stop off the line and whom few can contain once he's down the field. He's been the most dangerous weapon of this short camp. Hope that Dez maintains focus because he's building towards a big year.

Behind them, the unknowns have moved from the "perhaps" to the "promising" category. Second year wideout Dwayne Harris runs as the first option in the teams' Ace (3 WR) sets these days and looks faster than he did as a rookie. He's shown more down-field burst and better skills at beating the jam off the line of scrimmage.

Today, Raymond Radway shook off the rust of two so-so days, and a frustrating first hour, where he mis-communicated with Rudy Carpenter on a deep out route, to notch the biggest "ooh" play of the day. Radway burned Morris Claiborne on a deep post in the final 11-on-11 scrimmage. Radway showed more confidence later in the day and may be regaining his bearings after his awful pre-season ending leg injury from 2011.

Meanwhile, first-day sensation Tim Benford continues to make plays. He's working mostly out of the slot in the Ace packages and made a leaping over-the-middle grab in an early 11-on-11 when the 2nd and 3rd units were battling. Like Radway, he burst wide open on a deep ball late, but lost it in the sun.

In all, the wide receiver position is no longer the black hole it appeared to be last week. It's too early to declare the understudies success stories, but they are where they need to be three days in.

On the other hand, the offensive line continues to absorb nicks and strains which are testing its depth. Projected right guard Mackenzy Bernardeau continues to rehab on the far sideline with trainer Britt Brown, though he appears very close to dressing. (He did a series of high speed sprinting and agility drills today which suggest that his surgically repaired hip is not far away from being cleared for play.)

Bernardeau's fellow free agent guard Nate Livings went down today with a hyper-extended knee. Early reports hinted that the injury is not serious. The team has also lost backup center Bill Nagy with an ankle injury, so the interior line was manned late in the day by 2nd year guard David Arkin and rookie Ron Leary. Arkin got some praise from line coach Bill Callahan early in the day for his zone blocking technique, but is still a work in progress. He's an erratic player at the moment, who can win one play but whiff on the next. Arkin looks stronger than 2011 and may settle in given more reps. He'll certainly get a lot of them this week.

Another story from pad day one was the strong play of the defensive rookies. The number one pick Claiborne had an up-and-down afternoon, winning some big duels against Dez Bryant but losing some against fellow youngsters Radway and Harris. His day was summed up by a play where Claiborne leaped high to tip a Tony Romo fade, only to see the ball snatched out of the air by the falling Harris. Claiborne has the raw skills and the resiliency, but he needs a lot of reps. He continues to increase his physical tone, and is getting better with his off-the-line jams.

Claiborne's fellow draftees made some plays in the kids-vs.-kids scrimmages from the session's first hour. DE Tyrone Crawford looks like a player. He's still raw, but showed a burst off the football in drills and carried this over into the scrimmage. He beat Jeff Adams for one sack and whizzed by Arkin in a late drill for a "phantom sack." (The rushers are instructed to run past the QB and tap him, to prevent needless hits and possible injuries.)

Undrafted free agent Adrian Hamilton made some big plays in that same scrimmage and showed some intriguing speed and change of direction in a late-practice rushing drill, where the rushers and offensive linemen went one-on-one. Hamilton alternated between strong side DE in the Cowboys' nickel four-man line and outside linebacker in the base 3-4. Hamilton played with his hand down at Prairie View A&M and looks comfortable in this role, especially when matched up against right tackles.

In the first scrimmage, Hamilton lined up at right end and beat guard Levy Adcock on an inside stunt. Later in that scrimmage, Hamilton shadowed the quarterback while playing OLB and knocked down a pass that was headed into the right flat.

Late in the day, Hamilton flashed some smooth moves at Adams and starter Doug Free. In a one-on-one drill where an individual rusher faces a single blocker, Hamilton started upfield on Adams and used an inside spin to leave the tackle grasping for air. On his next rep, Hamilton used a straight outside-inside counter to freeze Free and slide towards the quarterback. Hamilton shows the ability to change directions at speed and displayed a wider repertoire than he showed in his college All-Star games. It appears he's taking to coaching quickly and deserves more attention from fans in the pre-season games.

Notes:

-- Screens and more screens. The Cowboys offense continues to run a variety of quick screens to its backs in drills.

-- No screens: the defenses were clearly ahead of the offenses in the full scrimmages today. Rob Ryan's guys stopped most of the screens, be they tailback screens, tight end screens or flanker screens. Orlando Scandrick, DeMarcus Ware and Teddy Williams defused three consecutive screen calls mid-session.

-- The drag-and-fly effect. Dallas practiced a nifty play where the offense put two tight ends on one side of the field, dragged one underneath the line on a fake counter, then sent him deep up the seam, while the quarterback rolled to the opposite side on an apparent boot-leg pass.

It all looked good against air, but Ryan's guys had the tight end smothered in double-coverage when it was run live.

-- No worries: Sean Lee also sniffed out a screen, and is his automatic self. He's going to spoil the Cowboys faithful, if he hasn't already.

-- Making a push: Justin Taplin-Ross showed a lot of special teams moxie on Tuesday. Today, 2nd-year fullback Shaun Chapas made a case with a loud block on a punt return drill. He's running behind new signing Lawrence Vickers, who showed some very strong pop on edge runs today. If Chapas wants to earn a promotion from the practice squad to the final 53, more hits like today's will help his case.

-- Still making plays: linebacker Orie Lemon knocked down another pass. He had a pick six on day one and got his hands on a football yesterday. He's another guy who keeps getting himself noticed.

-- Chicken soup for the safety soul: Barry Church continues to take advantage of Brodney Pool's absence. Church made a diving breakup of a Romo pass for Jason Witten today. Like Lemon, he's making at least one big play ever day, and Church is doing it against the starters.

-- Still the one: the Cowboys would love to move Austin out of the slot in the Ace set, but none on the youngsters appear ready to make a push here. Benford is the closest and he's far from a sure thing.
 
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We have holes at third WR, but all our young guys are looking like studs.

We have a hole at safety, but Church is making plays.

SUPERBOWL BABY!
 

Theebs

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Hamilton with his hand on the ground is interesting.

Ware -Ratliff-Spencer-Hamilton with butler standing and roaming should provide a push I would think.

Preseason is going to be fun to watch.

Surprised Harris is running with the one's with ogle tree there.

I imagine within a week Andre Holmes will have the camp buzzing with his size and ability.
 

LAZARUS_LOGAN

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-- Screens and more screens. The Cowboys offense continues to run a variety of quick screens to its backs in drills.

Gee Garrett. Had you ran some screens against the Cardinals, we would have won that game.
 

LAZARUS_LOGAN

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Hamilton with his hand on the ground is interesting.

Ware -Ratliff-Spencer-Hamilton with butler standing and roaming should provide a push I would think.

Preseason is going to be fun to watch.

Surprised Harris is running with the one's with ogle tree there.

I imagine within a week Andre Holmes will have the camp buzzing with his size and ability.


Ogletree is pretty much done. And it is not like he didn't have opportunity. He reached his ceiling. He was quite the tease. It doesn't really make sense to have him as the 4th or even 5th WR. And he's lousy on ST.
 
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Just about everyone on the Giants, from Mara to coach Tom Coughlin to quarterback Eli Manning and on down, seems to be perfectly content to let the Jerry Joneses and Tim Tebows of the world make all the headlines. The Giants would prefer to win quietly.

"Cowboys are still teh best."

-dbair
 

cmd34

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TC was pretty cool, much better experience than the last time I went.

You have to pay $10 for parking, which was new, but I heard half of that money goes to the Explorers, so that's okay. I'm sure Jerry could let them have all of it but the man loves his money.

If you are a True Blue member, you get a wristband and they will get you in early so you can grab a spot on the fence. If you want autographs or want to be really close to the action, it's worth it to spend $20 to join. Especially if you are going to go more than one day. You can join True Blue there and it also gets you lower prices on most of the merchandise.

"Celebrity" sightings - Michael Rappaport was there. The people I was standing by were giving him crap for being a Giants fan but he took it well and stopped to talk trash with them. I spoke to Calvin Watkins some. He was kneeling in front of us, taking notes. We talked about the 3rd WR. He feels someone currently on the roster will step up and he thinks it will be Andre Holmes (who is huge by the way). Last, I met and spoke with Allan Graf and his son Kevin. Allan played on USC's 72 National Championship team and is now an actor, stuntman, and director. You'd recognize him from countless action movies as a thug, cop, tough guy, etc. if you google image search him. Found out he knows and has worked with my grandfather. His son, Kevin Graf, is the starting right tackle for USC. 6'6" kid who was there to see Tyron and watch the O Line drills, which were right in front of us. People overhead us talking and realized Kevin was a USC player and started crowding him and asking for autographs, so my bad for that.

Actual football stuff - I was really impressed with guys I hadn't been before. Tyrone Crawford, Kyle Wilber, and brace yourself superpunk, Barry Church. Crawford is definitely a non-stop player. Wilber is way more athletic than I remembered. He also spent about 20 minutes after practice working 1-on-1 with DeMarcus Ware working on hand-fighting and pass-rush moves. Church was making play after play in the 7-on-7 drills and full scrimmages. Adrian Hamilton was also very impressive.

Stephen McGee looked AWFUL. I think this is it for him. Felix Jones, Andre Holmes, Jay Ratliff, and Mike Jenkins were in shorts but Holmes was the only one I noticed mirroring the drills. I said it before but that guy has some size. He's built like a small forward.

Autographs - I didn't bring in stuff to sign and I'm not really a fan of standing in crowds begging players to sign my tiny football but I wanted to help the couple next to me get Jason Witten to sign the woman's jersey (she had been trying for 2 days). Witten did an interview and started driving away in a cart, but the woman held up her jersey and Witten had the cart drive over. The lady was shaking when Jason signed it and he signed a bunch of stuff for about 5 minutes. A lot of players went right in and didn't sign anything. They're off today so maybe they just wanted to hurry up and get to their time off. Cole Beasley, who also had a nice day minus some dropped punts, signed for the entire time. He literally signed until no one was left.

Didn't see Jerry, which is probably why I'm able to write this and not locked up with Bob somewhere.
 

LAZARUS_LOGAN

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Good write up cmd. How many TC sessions will you be attending and doing write-ups on?

There used to be a guy named Grizz that did excellant blogs for Cowboys TC.
 

cmd34

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Good write up cmd. How many TC sessions will you be attending and doing write-ups on?

There used to be a guy named Grizz that did excellant blogs for Cowboys TC.

I may go again Saturday but my cousin is due to have her baby any minute, so it will depend on that. If she has the kid today or early tomorrow, I will probably go Saturday. The scrimmage is Sunday but I fly back to AZ Sunday morning.
 

Theebs

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"Cowboys are still teh best."

-dbair

interesting uva...

Were canty and bennett quiet when they said our players are not good and they would kick our ass three weeks ago?

were tisch and mara classy when they taunted jerry at there championship parade?

interesting. Same old thing....they say anything they want up there and no one cares nationally, if anyone here makes a peep it becomes the cowboys do all the talking.

and the fans who want to have another reason to hate there own team buy it hook line and sinker like you do.
 
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I don't need media articles to convince me that Jerry is an idiot. Our homers don't seem to get it.

The giants have won two super bowls in the past 4 seasons and had to go through Dallas both times in order to do it. We were their little NFC East bitch during those runs, and Jerry still has found it in him to talk shit. Hell, they just ended our season.

I don't agree with Bennett's comments at all bc he's done nothing in his career, but those other comments are fine bc Dallas has been winning the offseason Super Bowl for 5 straight years (Eagles are just as stupid) while teams like NY win the actual thing. I'd say that gives them a little substance behind all that talk that offends you.

I'd much rather the owner make snide remarks from a championship parade float than to a small crowd at a training camp for an 8-8 team that finished second to last place in the division.
 

NoDak

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and the fans who want to have another reason to hate there own team buy it hook line and sinker like you do.

This is such a pussy cop out. Never expected to see that zonish shit over here.
 

bbgun

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interesting uva...

Were canty and bennett quiet when they said our players are not good and they would kick our ass three weeks ago?

were tisch and mara classy when they taunted jerry at there championship parade?

interesting. Same old thing....they say anything they want up there and no one cares nationally, if anyone here makes a peep it becomes the cowboys do all the talking.

and the fans who want to have another reason to hate there own team buy it hook line and sinker like you do.

Not quite. Tisch was mocking our "America's Team" moniker, which is worthy of contempt if you're not a Dallas fan.
 

Theebs

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This is such a pussy cop out. Never expected to see that zonish shit over here.

its not zonish at all.

its the national perception being put on you and then fans buying into it.....

bennett said he was going to kick the cowboys ass and he doesnt like a few guys here a week ago....no one nationally cared...it wasnt even talked about for more than 5 minutes here...

jerry says it at the opening pep rally and it is the main story on espn and nfl network which in turn becomes a big topic on the internet.

why be so gullible and fall for it? Why not ask why bennetts comments are not a big to do?

the cop out part is the fans who eat up what they are told by national guys.
 

Theebs

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Not quite. Tisch was mocking our "America's Team" moniker, which is worthy of contempt if you're not a Dallas fan.

right.

but why did he do it? to take a shot at the cowboys...

and didnt coughlin do something similar at the 07 one?

My point is why do the fans here always just accept that its ok from one side to the say something and not ok for the other side.

If we win a superbowl and at the parade Jerry starts making comments about taking a bite out of the big apple, that will be a big deal.
 
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Pretty sure most people on this site are intelligent enough to derive their own opinions on these matters.

And yes:

owner of NFL's most valuable franchise >> scrub backup TE

...when it comes to news headlines.
 
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