Cowboys preseason schedule plus other important offseason dates

I highly doubt Louis Delmas will be around at pick #51. He’s being labeled as the best safety prospect in the draft. His scouting report just reminds me too much of Roy Williams. A hard hitter who is good at stopping the run, but is prone to bite on the play action. It does sound like he has better coverage skills than Roy Williams did. His reported score of 12 on the wonderlic doesn’t bode too well either.

I’m intrigued by the safety out of Troy, Sherrod Martin. He’s got excellent coverage skills. He came in as a corner but Troy already had Leodis McKelvin and Elbert Mack starting so they moved him to safety because he was just too talented to not be on the field. Troy seems to be producing good pro prospects the last few years.

This is going to be a long winded post, so please forgive me. I have always liked articles by Pat Kirwan at NFL.com. In 2005, he wrote about the search for athletes that are both explosive and powerful. He said that if you add an athlete’s number of bench press reps to his vertical jump and his broad jump, he looked for someone’s combined score that added up to 70.
    Kirwan said “there is no reason to look for athletes who do not have a high draft grade because, for the most part, they have already indicated they aren’t good enough football players on the field. After filtering them out, I went after those prospects with a good playing grade and a score over 70. I then filter out the weight-room guys who have 40 reps on the bench and an 18 inch vertical and a 7 foot broad jump. There’s a place for a strong guy in a weight room, but he’s not the guy most coaches are looking for. Along the same line of thinking, a basketball-type player with a 42 inch vertical and an 11 foot broad jump but just 9 reps on the bench also falls out – he can’t deliver a blow when he gets there. The magic number of 70 indicates the explosive/ powerful athletes. These guys can get there and bring it.”

For example, Demarcus Ware had 27 reps on the bench, a vertical leap of 38.5 inches and a broad jump of 10-foot-2. These numbers add up to 75. Justin Tuck of the NY Giants had a combined score of 72.

Recently, Marcus Freeman (LB from Ohio St.) had 30 reps, a 37 inch leap and a broad jump of 10 for a combined score of 77. That is the type of player that I think Dallas should look for when they get on the clock in each round. Have any of you noticed any other special athletes out there?