Seven Training Camp Battles For The Dallas Cowboys Offense

From what Hurd has said, he’s looking forward to competing this year as a Cowboy, and I would assume we’d ignore Crayton’s demands and bring him back also.

I understand being concerned if you’re the Texans and Andre Johnson is holding out, but since when do teams worry too much abotu the demands of #4 WRs? I would think both Hurd and Crayton will come back and will compete for spots on the depth chart with all their characteristic motivation, since their careers depend on it, and I’ll be happy to have them.

The three insiders need to play for a while.

They watched hours upon hours of film on him and perfected his routes and tried to copy the same type of play that he does on the field and they did it pretty good, or so it seems. My guess is they also coached the other guys on what they found and gave little pointers on what worked to either slow him down or just make him ineffective. :)

And also the DL battle. We’ve got Lissemore, Aumavae and Siavii all battling to backup JRat. We have Spears, Bowen, Dixon, Hatcher, Washington and possibly Lissemore all fighting for one DE starting spot and two or three backup positions.

My money is on Hamlin to beat him out.

But next year I have high hopes for our 4th round pick who’s name I dare not attempt to type or pronounce.

I saw the same thing. I don’t think it was Flo territory, but more than he should have.

Witten had those false starts, Pass intereference, holding….all kinds of different penalties last year. I don’t remember him having the penalty bug before.

Sean Lee/Penn State fan? No love for Keith Brooking?

For what it’s worth Sensabaugh seems to think Mike Hamlin is ready to start right now. He had high praise, and basically went over the top talking about Hamlin’s skills.

Take a peek

Free and Ball are new starters, so you could look at those positions as having had the incumbents unseated. And I think we should expect J Williams to challenge at the ILB spot, if not now, then by early/midseason.

I also consider #3 receiver a starting spot, so I’d look at that as a battle, and I guess you could argue that #2 TE is a battle right now? I have no idea what the coaching staff thinks of Marty B right now.

or is Bennett following the Vernon Davis career arc? Have all of the receiving potential in the world and be a devastating blocker, but fail to live up to expectations. Then, BOOM, blow up and be one of the best in the league.

bennett is still far superior to philips, he didn’t had catcheslast year but was very good blocking

good one.

Just need McBriar practicing those coffin corner kicks.

How many big play-off games were decided by a FG? I can think of a few Super Bowls too. If “HOPE” is our strategy, we could live to regret trying to save on that last roster spot.

But didn’t I read that the average made FGs since about the time Steve Hoffman left has been 76% or thereabouts? I can’t provide a link because I don’t remember where it was.

Buehler made 69% at USC.

Would you be satisfied if he made 73% this year and kept his 38 touchbacks on kickoffs? I think I would.

I’d tell my coaching staff we needed to score TDs and take the pressure off the FG kicker.

he has more tools.

why did you say such foolish things

His career is at stake. Once he’s in camp, he’ll play hard.

People aren’t talking about him as much because he’s never had the media coverage and they just don’t know his name, but if you look at the numbers (and records) he put up in college you know he’s got some real potential. Realistically, I wouldn’t expect to see much of him this year, but when you look at how many people are fighting for a spot that’s pretty much up for grabs….I wouldn’t be surprised if he makes it.

every year we have more WRs that I’d like to see on the squad than we possibly have room for. I think Crayton has been an very valuable contributor to this team and I have a huge amount of respect and appreciate for him, especially the rapport he has shown with Romo in clutch situations.

but… at this point, he may be 1) more expensive than a younger guy who can do the same thing, and 2) a so-called progress stopper for one of the younger guys who with experience is going to be a better long-term investment of training and reps at this point.

Hurd kind of falls into the same category. I always hoped he could get a chance to show what he could do at WR, and after all the team has invested in him it seems like he should get a shot like Miles did, but now with Miles, Roy, Dez and Tree, if all he’s going to be is a special teamer, it’s probably better for him to go to a team that could really use him at receiver, and give a cheaper and younger guy a chance to move up.

So I’d be sad to see PC or Hurd go, but I wouldn’t cry into my beer over it, and I’d love to see Tree basically take over the Crayton role to some extent, except with the added element of speed to stretch the field, and Holley, Manny and/or Titus step up and show he has what it takes to take over for Hurd in the ST department and get at least a few reps at WR this season.

You’re going to vomit over the third string QB?

not too often you see a player that can’t cut it at safety get moved to cornerback—

although i don’t remember his technical shortcomings outside of general sucktitude

I personally think that if they play him at CB that they will be making a pretty big mistake. He only has professional experience in the Indy defensive system (remember how bad Jason David played for New Orleans after leaving Indy?) and now that he has another knee injury to heal back from I don’t see him becoming a successful CB other than maybe in some spot duty. On the other hand, if they play him at safety I think he could be serviceable since the brunt of coverage won’t be forced on him.

scoring 30+ on the eagals.

center scares the heck out of me.

the stats are cleverly hidden in the text, but you’re right, this may actually be the first post without a table or graph in it.

First off, there are TWO red-shirt rookies that the Cowboys are excited about. Not sure how they compare to other prospects we had a shot at drafting, but Brewster and Bright both look promising. Throw in Barron, and you’ve got three new faces joining the 53 this year.

Also: I believe the LT job is Free’s to lose … and if Brewster challenges Columbo for the RT spot, we could conceivably have 4 decent tackles on the team. Not many teams can boast that kind of depth.

and some teams it did happen to last year.

Between Barron (most likely Free’s backup, not the other way around) and Holland, we at last have a couple vets who have some starts under their belt that cover basically every spot except C. Between Brewster and Bright, we have a couple youngsters who hopefully are the future. My biggest concern right now is C, Procter for all his shortcomings was valuable because he could play all 3 interior positions. We don’t really have anyone on the roster right now who we know could be a backup C.

But the nightmare scenario of losing multiple starting oline would seriously hinder most teams in the league.

I believe Raf has pointed this out previously, but in the Torin Tucker/Petiti year, it was TWO injuries on the line that doomed us. We were strong enough to withstand one, and I think we still are.

I think Barron is a good backup at the swing tackle spot. He’s a 74 game starter in the league, and while I would never want him as our everyday starter, it seems like he has the ability to be competent back there in a limited stretch of games. You also have Brewster backing up at RT— I know nothing about him other than what I’ve read, due to his injury last year, but the staff seems confident in his ability as a backup there.

The danger to me in on the interior. Kosier as C backup is scary, but I guess it’s better than Procter. I think of Holland in the same way that I do Barron— I would never want him starting the majority of a season for us, but if Kosier goes down and Holland is paired with our other 4 starters, then I think that would be somewhat workable for a stretch.

The really scary scenarios start happening when TWO of the OLs go down. Because then you’re looking at Barron and Holland side by side, or Brewster and Holland, or some other line-up that really sounds bad for Tony and that I don’t think we could cover up very well.

So I only start getting really worried if 1) Gurode goes down, or 2) we have multiple injuries on the OL that last multiple games.

I’m petty sure.

Schaub has much less pocket awareness compared to Romo and also has nowhere near the playmaking ability that Tony has.

This team cannot compete with its own division, it has a 1-15 record against the colts, but the last three years they have been the “dark horse” pick to make the playoffs. The media would like this team to be relevant to try and revive the old oilers vs dallas rivalry, but the tex-anns have yet to do anything that would merit any attention. Until they can finish 4-2 in their division they are not going anywhere.