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Galloway - Cowboys grabbing at air for wideouts
Cowboys grabbing at air for wideouts
Posted Tuesday, Aug. 07, 2012
BY RANDY GALLOWAY
rgalloway@star-telegram.com
OXNARD, Calif. -- Dang it, this doesn't make NFL sense. Not now, still early in August, it doesn't make sense. And at some point, of course, it's going to have to make better sense.
But the Cowboys are in training camp woefully short in the one area that drives today's offensive football in the league.
You pass to win. You pass to set up the run. It's an aerial era. Even the New York Giants, with their hard-nose, run-it heritage, won a second Super Bowl in five years in February because of ...
Yes, the Giants Cruzed into the title game, then went Manningham in the Super Bowl. Eli threw it like Eli has never thrown it, and the NY defense came alive at the right time. Postseason time.
If you ain't passing it in the NFL, the rest of the league is passing you by.
New offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Bill Callahan is now employed by Jason Garrett, with the given that he's here to "convince" Red J to rely more on the running game.
I heard Callahan say out here the other day, "you have to run it to win," and just when I'm thinking what-the-heck, he added, "but you have to throw it to win championships."
Amen. Even the new "run it guru" has the bottom line correct.
Frankly, in this day and age when you judge NFL clubs, one of the first categories considered, maybe right after quarterback, is the strength of the receiving game. How good are your wideouts?
In the NFC East alone, look at the Eagles. The Cowboys don't compare in that area. Look at the Giants, even with Mario Manningham having moved on in free agency. Do the Cowboys actually compare?
Going against current NFL offensive wisdom, the Cowboys went through the off-season and now into training camp with the theory that Dez Bryant and Miles Austin would anchor the wideout position. And after that, in a league where you need three dependable receivers, if not four, the Cowboys decided to take the grab-bag, pray-for-good-mojo approach.
Plus, with Austin and his ongoing hamstring issues (there's already been another hammy flare-up in this camp) and with Dez -- well, you know the Dez story -- depending on even the frontline receivers is iffy.
But the current supporting case features such names as Andre Holmes, Kevin Ogletree, Dwayne Harris, maybe rookie Danny Coale, and for the moment, a real long-shot free-agent rookie in Tim Benford, out of Tennessee Tech. Benford has been getting nods of approval in this camp.
Basically, it's a big grab bag of nothing, at least until further notice. Holmes has been billed as the next big thing, because he is big, at 6-4 and 220 pounds, and team vice president Stephen Jones was telling me last weekend how excited Tony Romo is about Holmes' potential. The next day Holmes dropped two passes in the end zone.
For now, Ogletree is probably the third receiver, but how long has it now been since the Cowboys started waiting on Ogletree to step up?
Just for meanness, I initiated another argument with Stephen over the team allowing last season's most dependable receiver, Laurent Robinson, to walk in free agency.
Look, I know Jacksonville came at Robinson with an offer that was out-of-whack. Laurent wanted to stay here, but $32 million, with a $16 million signing bonus, was an NFL gold mine for one breakout year. Now, he will go to Jax and fade from sight, with no proven quarterback.
"We think Laurent would have signed with us for less, but how much less could he go?" said Stephen. "We were offering exactly half of what Jacksonville did, because we feel a third receiver is worth about $3 million [a season]."
With Jason Witten, the Cowboys rate him as the third receiver, so in theory, Robinson was only the fourth receiver on this team. But when Austin was down with injuries last season, Laurent was still producing best of all in the clutch. For those actually watching the games, he performed like the team's No. 1 receiver.
OK, OK ... enough grousing about Robinson.
But the Cowboys need to find another one like him, and there seems to be a confidence factor that sooner or later they will. If "that guy" is not on this current roster, then when final NFL cuts happen, the search will continue. That's the way Robinson was landed a year ago.
But it still comes down to the fact the Cowboys lost a top producer at wide receiver, then did nothing in the off-season in attempting to pick up at least a journeyman veteran on the street, hoping for a revival.
Meanwhile, there is still lingering doubt about Austin's health, and Dez's productivity, combined with what currently appeared to be a grab-bag list of step-up candidates.
All this comes at a position that drives offensive football in today's NFL. If you are asking if Tony Romo currently has a built-in handicap at QB, the answer is yes. The man needs dependable and healthy wideouts.
That "oh, well" approach by the Cowboys drives me nuts, but nobody seems all that concerned about it out here.
Cowboys grabbing at air for wideouts
Posted Tuesday, Aug. 07, 2012
BY RANDY GALLOWAY
rgalloway@star-telegram.com
OXNARD, Calif. -- Dang it, this doesn't make NFL sense. Not now, still early in August, it doesn't make sense. And at some point, of course, it's going to have to make better sense.
But the Cowboys are in training camp woefully short in the one area that drives today's offensive football in the league.
You pass to win. You pass to set up the run. It's an aerial era. Even the New York Giants, with their hard-nose, run-it heritage, won a second Super Bowl in five years in February because of ...
Yes, the Giants Cruzed into the title game, then went Manningham in the Super Bowl. Eli threw it like Eli has never thrown it, and the NY defense came alive at the right time. Postseason time.
If you ain't passing it in the NFL, the rest of the league is passing you by.
New offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Bill Callahan is now employed by Jason Garrett, with the given that he's here to "convince" Red J to rely more on the running game.
I heard Callahan say out here the other day, "you have to run it to win," and just when I'm thinking what-the-heck, he added, "but you have to throw it to win championships."
Amen. Even the new "run it guru" has the bottom line correct.
Frankly, in this day and age when you judge NFL clubs, one of the first categories considered, maybe right after quarterback, is the strength of the receiving game. How good are your wideouts?
In the NFC East alone, look at the Eagles. The Cowboys don't compare in that area. Look at the Giants, even with Mario Manningham having moved on in free agency. Do the Cowboys actually compare?
Going against current NFL offensive wisdom, the Cowboys went through the off-season and now into training camp with the theory that Dez Bryant and Miles Austin would anchor the wideout position. And after that, in a league where you need three dependable receivers, if not four, the Cowboys decided to take the grab-bag, pray-for-good-mojo approach.
Plus, with Austin and his ongoing hamstring issues (there's already been another hammy flare-up in this camp) and with Dez -- well, you know the Dez story -- depending on even the frontline receivers is iffy.
But the current supporting case features such names as Andre Holmes, Kevin Ogletree, Dwayne Harris, maybe rookie Danny Coale, and for the moment, a real long-shot free-agent rookie in Tim Benford, out of Tennessee Tech. Benford has been getting nods of approval in this camp.
Basically, it's a big grab bag of nothing, at least until further notice. Holmes has been billed as the next big thing, because he is big, at 6-4 and 220 pounds, and team vice president Stephen Jones was telling me last weekend how excited Tony Romo is about Holmes' potential. The next day Holmes dropped two passes in the end zone.
For now, Ogletree is probably the third receiver, but how long has it now been since the Cowboys started waiting on Ogletree to step up?
Just for meanness, I initiated another argument with Stephen over the team allowing last season's most dependable receiver, Laurent Robinson, to walk in free agency.
Look, I know Jacksonville came at Robinson with an offer that was out-of-whack. Laurent wanted to stay here, but $32 million, with a $16 million signing bonus, was an NFL gold mine for one breakout year. Now, he will go to Jax and fade from sight, with no proven quarterback.
"We think Laurent would have signed with us for less, but how much less could he go?" said Stephen. "We were offering exactly half of what Jacksonville did, because we feel a third receiver is worth about $3 million [a season]."
With Jason Witten, the Cowboys rate him as the third receiver, so in theory, Robinson was only the fourth receiver on this team. But when Austin was down with injuries last season, Laurent was still producing best of all in the clutch. For those actually watching the games, he performed like the team's No. 1 receiver.
OK, OK ... enough grousing about Robinson.
But the Cowboys need to find another one like him, and there seems to be a confidence factor that sooner or later they will. If "that guy" is not on this current roster, then when final NFL cuts happen, the search will continue. That's the way Robinson was landed a year ago.
But it still comes down to the fact the Cowboys lost a top producer at wide receiver, then did nothing in the off-season in attempting to pick up at least a journeyman veteran on the street, hoping for a revival.
Meanwhile, there is still lingering doubt about Austin's health, and Dez's productivity, combined with what currently appeared to be a grab-bag list of step-up candidates.
All this comes at a position that drives offensive football in today's NFL. If you are asking if Tony Romo currently has a built-in handicap at QB, the answer is yes. The man needs dependable and healthy wideouts.
That "oh, well" approach by the Cowboys drives me nuts, but nobody seems all that concerned about it out here.
