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Cruel Reminder
Spagnola: Good Cowboys Still Have Them Some PC
Mickey Spagnola
DallasCowboys
SAN ANTONIO - Doggone it, this is the way this column was supposed have started.
Let's start right here with some ifs, and of varying sizes.
If Miles Austin is the real deal, meaning can once again approach those gaudy numbers of last year he mostly posted in 12 games, the 81 catches, 1,320 yards, 11 touchdowns and 16.3 yards-per-catch average, and is not some Haley's Comet …
If Roy Williams turns out to be the guy the Cowboys thought they were trading for, you know, the one-time Pro Bowler who has nine million smackeroos guaranteed this year and is not the struggling veteran of the past 1½ seasons …
And if Dez Bryant has not been a mirage this first week of training camp, and is what our eyes here at the Alamodome on a daily basis are telling us he's going to be and not the problem child 23 other teams in this year's draft decided he would be …
Then and only then - and this might border on sacrilege - the Dallas Cowboys 2010 receiving corps will go down as the best ever in the 51 years of franchise history.
Seriously, that's what I had written earlier on Friday. Before practice. Before the second to last play of practice. Before the air went out of the Alamodome here at training camp, along with the stomach of owner Jerry Jones, who probably felt as if he had been punched in the gut.
Yes, before Cowboys first-round draft choice Dez Bryant, who has been the story of training camp, and for all the right reasons, laid out for a pass on a medium-deep in route with cornerback Orlando Scandrick coming over the top trying to break up the pass, the two getting tangled up on the ground with Dez's ankle going in a bad way.
You could tell he was in pain, as he laid there for a moment, with the fans in the stands pleading for him to get up. He tried. He did. But not for long. He would go back down to the ground, sitting upright but clutching his lower right ankle. At least it was his ankle, and not his knee, surely the owner exhaling a sigh of relief - sorta.
How the Cowboys have been chasing this wide receiver position, ever since Michael Irvin went down in the fourth game of the 1999 season in Philadelphia, never to play another down of football. Trades. Signing free agents. Draft choices, but none higher than a second-rounder, Antonio Bryant in 2002.
And at last, the Cowboys invested in a wide receiver in the first round for the first time since 1991, a span of 20 years between taking Alvin Harper then and Dez Bryant now. And then in his 10th practice, there he was, being helped off the field by two of the trainers, Jim Maurer and Britt Brown, so he could keep the weight off his right ankle, leading him into the locker room where the attending doctors followed closely behind.
Bryant was first headed for an X-ray at a local imaging facility the team uses during training camp, and most likely a follow-up MRI. Head coach Wade Phillips was calling the injury a sprained ankle, but did not know the extent at the time of his post-practice press conference. But from the pain Bryant obviously was in, he was going to miss some practice time.
The results about two hours later revealed the dreaded high ankle sprain, as was somewhat expected, and the rookie wide receiver is likely to be out four to six weeks. Only a torn ACL could be worse. High ankle sprains are the pits, and have been known to end seasons or at least temper them.
So let this be a reminder and lesson about the fragility of football players, no matter if you are a first-round pick or a rookie free agent. And go ahead, agonize over this happening on the second to last play of practice, the day almost over. Almost.
But this reminder and lesson were overdue, too much being taken for granted the minute the Cowboys were able to select Bryant with the 24th pick in the first round. Why, with Dez and Miles Austin, who needed Roy Williams anymore, his $9 million guarantee for this year not even a consideration to some. Easy to waste other people's money.
And, OK, if you just had to keep Roy, then no need for Patrick Crayton's services anymore. Trade him. And most screamed to cut him when he balked at attending the majority of the OTAs. Who needs him anymore, they screamed, he's afraid to compete?
Really? This team that has been grubbing for wide receivers ever since Irvin's spinal stenosis sent him into retirement suddenly, could turn snooty, acting as if they didn't need a guy who has averaged 35 catches a year over his 5 ½-year career in the NFL with the Cowboys? As if they had too many, if you were counting the on-coming Kevin Ogletree, too?
But the Cowboys wisely practiced restraint when Crayton balked at working out. Both were making business decisions. Crayton, who has never been afraid to compete, didn't want to be used as a $2 million insurance policy against such an injury, and then get cut come Sept. 4 when rosters are trimmed to 53 if he no longer was needed. He just wanted a level competing field.
And the Cowboys realized that for $2 million, they at least would have a sure thing at wide receiver, since Austin is coming off that one breakout season; since who knows if Roy can get it together with quarterback Tony Romo; since Ogletree, no matter how good he looked in spot duty last year, still had only caught seven NFL passes; and frankly there's been many a first-round receiver needing a year or two of seasoning before producing.
Crayton, is proven if you consider after the seventh-round pick out of Northwestern Oklahoma State played in just eight games his rookie year, has put up consecutive seasons of 22 catches, 36, 50, 39 and 37. He has 23 career touchdowns, including five last year as the third receiver and seven in that 13-3 season of 2007 when he started 13 of the 15 games he played.
Why in the world would you want to let that guy walk or send him walking somewhere else?
Plus, what in the world is wrong with having four really good receivers, and possibly five and even six if Ogletree and Sam Hurd continue to improve? One injury to the top three, and what?
I mean, what's wrong with having the best wide receiver corps in Cowboys history?
And that's corps, not receiver or starters. Sure, none of these guys are Bob Hayes or Irvin or Drew Pearson or Lance Alworth or Golden Richards or heck, I'll admit it, Terrell Owens - yet. But as a collective group, we can talk about this being potentially the best group of receivers the Cowboys have ever had in their previous 50 years - that is if all my aforementioned conditions were met.
About the only counter argument you can make would be the early '80s threesome of Pearson, Tony Hill and Butch Johnson. Those guys were stout, and one of the reasons Danny White set the team's single-season passing yardage record of 3,980 yards in 1983 before Tony Romo eclipsed the mark twice in his three full seasons of starting.
But if you can add a Crayton, Ogletree and Hurd to the three big ifs, my debate is no contest.
Yet in mid-argument, just 10 practices into training camp, we already must pause such dreamy thoughts. Not everything goes as planned - especially in this game of football.
The sobering reality of Friday afternoon.
And why that other story began with all those ifs.
Spagnola: Good Cowboys Still Have Them Some PC
Mickey Spagnola
DallasCowboys
SAN ANTONIO - Doggone it, this is the way this column was supposed have started.
Let's start right here with some ifs, and of varying sizes.
If Miles Austin is the real deal, meaning can once again approach those gaudy numbers of last year he mostly posted in 12 games, the 81 catches, 1,320 yards, 11 touchdowns and 16.3 yards-per-catch average, and is not some Haley's Comet …
If Roy Williams turns out to be the guy the Cowboys thought they were trading for, you know, the one-time Pro Bowler who has nine million smackeroos guaranteed this year and is not the struggling veteran of the past 1½ seasons …
And if Dez Bryant has not been a mirage this first week of training camp, and is what our eyes here at the Alamodome on a daily basis are telling us he's going to be and not the problem child 23 other teams in this year's draft decided he would be …
Then and only then - and this might border on sacrilege - the Dallas Cowboys 2010 receiving corps will go down as the best ever in the 51 years of franchise history.
Seriously, that's what I had written earlier on Friday. Before practice. Before the second to last play of practice. Before the air went out of the Alamodome here at training camp, along with the stomach of owner Jerry Jones, who probably felt as if he had been punched in the gut.
Yes, before Cowboys first-round draft choice Dez Bryant, who has been the story of training camp, and for all the right reasons, laid out for a pass on a medium-deep in route with cornerback Orlando Scandrick coming over the top trying to break up the pass, the two getting tangled up on the ground with Dez's ankle going in a bad way.
You could tell he was in pain, as he laid there for a moment, with the fans in the stands pleading for him to get up. He tried. He did. But not for long. He would go back down to the ground, sitting upright but clutching his lower right ankle. At least it was his ankle, and not his knee, surely the owner exhaling a sigh of relief - sorta.
How the Cowboys have been chasing this wide receiver position, ever since Michael Irvin went down in the fourth game of the 1999 season in Philadelphia, never to play another down of football. Trades. Signing free agents. Draft choices, but none higher than a second-rounder, Antonio Bryant in 2002.
And at last, the Cowboys invested in a wide receiver in the first round for the first time since 1991, a span of 20 years between taking Alvin Harper then and Dez Bryant now. And then in his 10th practice, there he was, being helped off the field by two of the trainers, Jim Maurer and Britt Brown, so he could keep the weight off his right ankle, leading him into the locker room where the attending doctors followed closely behind.
Bryant was first headed for an X-ray at a local imaging facility the team uses during training camp, and most likely a follow-up MRI. Head coach Wade Phillips was calling the injury a sprained ankle, but did not know the extent at the time of his post-practice press conference. But from the pain Bryant obviously was in, he was going to miss some practice time.
The results about two hours later revealed the dreaded high ankle sprain, as was somewhat expected, and the rookie wide receiver is likely to be out four to six weeks. Only a torn ACL could be worse. High ankle sprains are the pits, and have been known to end seasons or at least temper them.
So let this be a reminder and lesson about the fragility of football players, no matter if you are a first-round pick or a rookie free agent. And go ahead, agonize over this happening on the second to last play of practice, the day almost over. Almost.
But this reminder and lesson were overdue, too much being taken for granted the minute the Cowboys were able to select Bryant with the 24th pick in the first round. Why, with Dez and Miles Austin, who needed Roy Williams anymore, his $9 million guarantee for this year not even a consideration to some. Easy to waste other people's money.
And, OK, if you just had to keep Roy, then no need for Patrick Crayton's services anymore. Trade him. And most screamed to cut him when he balked at attending the majority of the OTAs. Who needs him anymore, they screamed, he's afraid to compete?
Really? This team that has been grubbing for wide receivers ever since Irvin's spinal stenosis sent him into retirement suddenly, could turn snooty, acting as if they didn't need a guy who has averaged 35 catches a year over his 5 ½-year career in the NFL with the Cowboys? As if they had too many, if you were counting the on-coming Kevin Ogletree, too?
But the Cowboys wisely practiced restraint when Crayton balked at working out. Both were making business decisions. Crayton, who has never been afraid to compete, didn't want to be used as a $2 million insurance policy against such an injury, and then get cut come Sept. 4 when rosters are trimmed to 53 if he no longer was needed. He just wanted a level competing field.
And the Cowboys realized that for $2 million, they at least would have a sure thing at wide receiver, since Austin is coming off that one breakout season; since who knows if Roy can get it together with quarterback Tony Romo; since Ogletree, no matter how good he looked in spot duty last year, still had only caught seven NFL passes; and frankly there's been many a first-round receiver needing a year or two of seasoning before producing.
Crayton, is proven if you consider after the seventh-round pick out of Northwestern Oklahoma State played in just eight games his rookie year, has put up consecutive seasons of 22 catches, 36, 50, 39 and 37. He has 23 career touchdowns, including five last year as the third receiver and seven in that 13-3 season of 2007 when he started 13 of the 15 games he played.
Why in the world would you want to let that guy walk or send him walking somewhere else?
Plus, what in the world is wrong with having four really good receivers, and possibly five and even six if Ogletree and Sam Hurd continue to improve? One injury to the top three, and what?
I mean, what's wrong with having the best wide receiver corps in Cowboys history?
And that's corps, not receiver or starters. Sure, none of these guys are Bob Hayes or Irvin or Drew Pearson or Lance Alworth or Golden Richards or heck, I'll admit it, Terrell Owens - yet. But as a collective group, we can talk about this being potentially the best group of receivers the Cowboys have ever had in their previous 50 years - that is if all my aforementioned conditions were met.
About the only counter argument you can make would be the early '80s threesome of Pearson, Tony Hill and Butch Johnson. Those guys were stout, and one of the reasons Danny White set the team's single-season passing yardage record of 3,980 yards in 1983 before Tony Romo eclipsed the mark twice in his three full seasons of starting.
But if you can add a Crayton, Ogletree and Hurd to the three big ifs, my debate is no contest.
Yet in mid-argument, just 10 practices into training camp, we already must pause such dreamy thoughts. Not everything goes as planned - especially in this game of football.
The sobering reality of Friday afternoon.
And why that other story began with all those ifs.