I’d be happy with a playoff win this year but my team doesn’t just play for playoff wins. We play for Super Bowls.

Foxsports.com’s John Czarnecki lists five teams he believes could compete for a championship and guess who made the cut? That’s right! The Dallas Cowboys. Key graphs.

Dallas simply ran out of gas and defensive backs last season when the Giants upset them in the playoffs. That shouldn't happen this year because the Cowboys are loaded at cornerback if Pacman Jones is reinstated (and continues to behave himself), plus if rookies Mike Jenkins and Orlando Scandrick continue to improve. Scandrick, a fifth-round pick from Boise State, out-played Jenkins in a recent mini-camp. Starters Anthony Henry and Terence Newman return. Granted, the Cowboys have to figure out how to handle safety Roy Williams, who remains a major liability in pass coverage. If Wade Phillips can figure out how to use Williams properly, the defense should be prepared for all those three and four receiver sets that worked so successfully against it last season.

The Cowboys remain solid on offense as long as Tony Romo keeps improving. Jason Garrett knows how to keep Terrell Owens motivated and tight end Jason Witten is a rising star. And don't worry about the loss of Julius Jones in free agency because rookies Felix Jones and Tashard Choice, who rushed for over 2,800 yards at Georgia Tech, give Garrett two options next to bruiser Marion Barber. Granted, the NFC East could be football's toughest division this season, but the Cowboys caught a schedule break by catching the NFC West and the AFC North this season.

Of course I agree with Czarnecki about the Cowboys but the list is kind of dubious. He also cites the Vikings, the Panthers and the Browns as teams that could end up in the Super Bowl this year. Yikes. Don’t know about the Vikings or the Browns. The Vikings have QB problems and the Browns are in a tough division. The Panthers always seems to be on lists like these but it never seems to materialize. I think the ‘Boys are really the only team ready to challenge for a ring on this list. Just my unbiased opinion.

Tony Romo and Patrick Crayton look back at the playoff loss to the Giants. They come to two conclusions: that sucked and we can learn from it.

Drew Pearson and Tony Casillas are being inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. Congrats guys.

What’s that old school classic by The Stylistics? "Break Up to Make Up" is the song I'm thinking about. Is this the nature of Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson’s relationship? As the song says, "break to make up/ that’s all we do/ that’s all we do/ first you love me/then you hate me/ that’s a game for fools."

Romo was heard saying "Me and Jessica are done" in Chicago. Then Team Jessica responded quickly to stamp out that rumor. Romo has reiterated that he doesn’t want to talk about it. So that’s where we are: the adamant denial of a rumor but Team Jess while Romo stays quiet.

Wow. Too much tabloid junk for me to handle. I need a shower.

ESPN has a pretty good Q&A with T.O.

Sam Alipour had an interesting 10-minute phone conversation with Owens. The highlights of the conversation are: his thoughts on Simpson writing a song about Romo on her new album, Flavor Flav being a huge Cowboy and T.O. fan and what his gift would be if and when Romo and Simpson decide to get married.

Pretty hilarious.

Hat tip to jsams for his FanShot here.

Patrick Crayton on Tony Romo's singing:

"That's the first time you got to hear Romo sing," Crayton said. “We get to hear it daily, and it's like horrible. It is bad. He finally got a replay back of it, and he finally admitted it. I'm like, 'Dude, I've been hearing it for four years. You're just now admitting that?'"

Zach Thomas on leadership:

"Leadership is shown by actions," Thomas said. "If you're making plays and doing everything the right way - doing what they're telling you to do in the weight room, showing up for everything, being consistent and being accountable - that's leadership. It's not giving a great pep talk. If you give a great pep talk and do all the right things and don't play well, there really isn't much leadership there. My leadership is coming in and playing well and getting the respect of my teammates."

Brian Stewart on the meeting with Roy Williams:

"I think all three of us left that meeting feeling comfortable that we've got an open line of communication," Stewart said. "Everyone knows where everyone stands. The past was the past, and now we've got a chance to move forward."

Jerry Jones on Marion Barber and Ken Hamlin:

"We've had visits and talked with them and their representatives," Jones said. "If their contracts were done, then I would expect them to be part of OTAs and minicamps. ... We expect to [make deals], and I think we'll do that certainly within the time frame that's good for everybody."

 Julius Jones' new position coach on his time in Dallas:

“I think playing for Bill Parcells in Dallas really helped bring out the best in Julius and he’ll tell you that,” Ruskell said. “That’s what he talked about with us when we brought him in as a free agent.

“Julius ran really hard and took advantage of what that line was trying to do in Dallas. With what we’re trying to do in changing our running game, I think that fits.”

Ken Hamlin's interview on Sirius radio.

Hat tip to DCFanatic for the Hamlin interview.

The Cowboys have set the dates for training camp in Oxnard.

Those camping dates are official: The Cowboys will report to training camp July 24 in Oxnard, Calif., and begin their three-week practice schedule on July 25.

[snip]

The Cowboys are tentatively scheduled to leave Tuesday, Aug. 12 for Denver, where they'll practice with the Broncos on Wednesday and Thursday of that week and then on Friday by themselves before Saturday's preseason game on Aug. 16.

The team will return home after the game to finish their preseason schedule against Houston and Minnesota at Texas Stadium.

Uh oh, Marion Barber and Ken Hamlin haven’t been showing up for workouts at the Ranch. Both guys have yet to sign their tenders. 

The Cowboys are almost seven full weeks into their off-season conditioning program, which is nearing its halfway point.

While nearly all the players have participated in full, Marion Barber and Ken Hamlin have not been among them.

When the Cowboys conduct a three-day OTA (organized team activity) practice schedule next week, it's likely those two players will not be in attendance.

Jerry’s not worried, yet.

"Not at all," Jones said during the team's annual golf tournament for sponsors, held at the Cowboys Golf Course in Grapevine. "I would like them to be here. But right now, we're working on a few things. I think when the time comes, they'll be ready to go."

More on Barber in this Star-T article and a little about Pacman Jones. 

Jerry Jones said suspended defensive back Pacman Jones has been in Dallas since the team traded for him, but that he remains unable to participate in any function at the team facility. Pacman Jones and Jerry Jones have visited, but the defensive back has not taken a physical from the team.

The NFL will have to approve whenever Pacman Jones is allowed to work out with the team at the facility.

"I do want him to come in and be a part of the team activities and off-season conditioning," Jerry Jones said. "I understand why he can’t. … He does know what he needs to be doing to prepare himself strength wise."

Jerry Jones gives a vote of confidence to Roy Williams, here.

Tom Orsborn also believes that T.O. appears to be a changed man in this article. He includes some Q&A with continued discussion over Roy Williams’ role in Dallas.

Speaking of Roy, Greg Ellis wanted to clarify his feelings about Roy. 

"I want everybody to understand how I feel about Roy," Ellis said. "Roy is my personal friend of mine -- not just a teammate, but I view him as a friend. So if anything ever gets twisted or distorted in any way, you're hearing it live, whoever is listening right now, from my mouth - Greg Ellis' mouth - that Roy is my friend, a guy I could honestly say that I love. I would never, ever say anything intentionally bad about Roy."

It looks like Spygate will not go any further if Roger Goodell has his way.

As noted by BTB-regular HutHut in this FanPost, our old friend Troy Hambrick just got sentenced to five years for selling rock. 

Over at Deadspin, they have a post from sportswriter Mike Fisher detailing his very rocky relationship with Charles Haley.

Mark me down as a guy who spoke too soon. Yesterday I posted that the "Greg Ellis comments on Roy Williams" story was played-out. Au contraire. Seems that partly based on those comments Roy Williams was summoned to the principal’s office. OK, so it wasn’t totally the Ellis comments that got Roy a meeting with coaches Brian Stewart and Brett Maxie. He also missed two teaching sessions last week while working on plans for his Mother’s Day charity program. Combine those two items together and some at Valley Ranch were starting to question his commitment to the Cowboys. When you throw in some points made by those inside and outside the organization that Roy’s problems on the field stem less from talent deficiencies and more from preparation deficiencies, you got a situation where the air needed to be cleared. As usual in situations like this, everything is hunky-dory, at least on the surface. 

"The communication was not there last year," Williams said. "We recognized the problem, and we talked about it. And we're going to move forward now. We have a better understanding."

Did you expect to hear anything else? I didn’t.

Now, as I speculated earlier, Roy wasn’t keen on Ellis dragging his name into the conversation. He realizes that Greg was trying to defend him, but he believes, like I did, that it didn’t really help the situation and that if Roy wants to complain about things he can handle that on his own behalf.

"I appreciate what Greg did, but at the same time, I'm a grown man, too, and I can speak for myself," said Williams, who still considers Ellis a friend. "If I want to be heard, I will be heard."

That was my major issue with Greg’s comments. Let Roy speak for himself. Then again, maybe Roy shouldn’t speak at all if he’s going to say stuff like the following.

"I'm tired about worrying about the fans," Williams said. "The fans are only around when things are good. I want supporters. At the end of the day, we're human beings, too. Everything can't be perfect, and you can't let your emotions rule over you being a human being. It gets to a point where you are abusing who you really are as a fan."

Yikes. First, Roy has taken on the media and blamed them for writing poisonous things about his play, now he’s taking on the fans. That’s a sure-fire losing combination and Roy should be smarter than that.

Here’s the bottom-line though; just play like you did in the first couple of years in the league and all will be forgiven. We know that Roy is not a good cover-safety, but playing intimidating defense with big hits, turnovers and plays behind the line of scrimmage was a good trade-off. Last year, we didn’t see that. Only Roy’s run-support was decent from last year and while that’s important, we expect more from Roy Williams.

Since Roy Williams seems to be getting a lot of negative publicity over the last week or so, I decided to post something positive for the man Cowboys fans love to hate. Roy’s charity foundation goes all out for select groups of mothers on Mother’s Day.

This year Williams is planning something bigger with a spa day, where a group of women will be pampered with manicures and massages while their kids will be have fun at a go-kart racing track.

"Sometimes I can go a little crazy, but it just makes me so happy to see their faces," says Williams. "You have to respect the moms for Mother's Day."

The article also talks with Roy’s mom.

Meanwhile, over at the DMN blog Calvin Watkins has a post talking all about Roy. 

Ok, I think everybody knows Roy Williams isn't going to another team. The Cowboys are not going to cut him. So let's stop this Roy Williams needs to go blog posts. They are really stupid.

Hey, Watkins said that, not me. Another nugget about whether Roy can revive his game this year.

Can he? Yes. Two opposing coaches told me they would take Williams in a minute if he were on the open market. Williams, however, needs to play much better in this 3-4 scheme. He has to study his playbook more, come in much better shape, and attack defenders. The scheme is not the problem. DeMarcus Ware, Ken Hamlin, Anthony Henry and Ellis had no problems with it.

And the defensive coaches need to stop babying him. I thought they did a lot of that last year. Dave Campo is no babysitter and that will probably help Williams more than anything else. Williams needs to be challenged.

My city paper has a nice article about Tashard Choice. It’s worth a read and talks about the budding relationship between Choice and El Gato.

"We have a good relationship," Felix Jones said. "We met at the [NFL scouting] combine and clicked. He's somebody I can talk to and relate to. We're going through the same thing. We're going to compete out there on the field but in the locker room, we're friends and we'll communicate. We talk about things."

This is a weird article. It’s about people who want their ashes spread at sports sites after they’re dead. It includes a Cowboys reference.

[Al] Everest's namesake uncle Al, was a big Cowboy fan and knew his football-oriented family — his brother Andy was a coach and his nephews played and coached football — would always think of him when they saw Texas Stadium if his ashes were scattered there.

"I'd had his ashes for a couple of years and my sister Kathy and brother Tom finally decided to do something about it," Al Everest said. "There might have been some liquid refreshment involved, but they took Uncle Al's ashes to the stadium and scattered them on the flowers outside the gate. It worked: I never see the Cowboys but what I think of Uncle Al."

What do the Cowboys think of such practices?

"It probably happens and we sort of turn a blind eye if people are discreet," said Rich Dalrymple, spokesman for the Dallas Cowboys. "But we don't really feel it's appropriate. And besides, these things have a way of turning into elaborate ceremonies and we don't want a stream of hearses pulling up to the stadium."

Greg Ellis just needs to employ a self-imposed gag order during the offseason. The last couple of years it was all the stuff about his contract and not fitting into the Cowboys 3-4 system. Now, he’s talking about another player not being comfortable in Wade Phillips’ 3-4 system. Here’s what Greg had to say about Roy Williams in an interview today. 

"Roy told me in training camp, he said, 'Greg this defense does not fit me. I don’t fit in well with this defense at all,' " Ellis said. "Obviously, it came to be true just like he said. He doesn’t fit what’s going on here in Dallas right now. Maybe this year, if they decide to keep him for this season Wade and them would kind of adjust some things to fit him better."

In truth, the part about Roy not being comfortable in Wade’s system is no big deal. I don’t know why that’s causing such a stir since Roy said the exact same thing in an interview last week. 

"I'm going to have to get comfortable in the system," [Roy Williams] said. "It's not easy with the coaching change. You're used to one thing and then you have to adjust to another playing style."

So he was just repeating what Roy already said and Greg was doing it in a defense of Roy. But dropping the "if they decide to keep him for this season" is not really something you want to say about a teammate. But we know that Roy isn’t going anywhere for this season, Dallas just doesn’t have the personnel at safety to do that. Then Ellis went further by saying:

"The bothersome thing for me as Roy’s friend and his teammate, I hate the criticism he is getting," Ellis said. "I hate the fact how he is kind of isolating himself from the team."

Now he’s making it sound like Roy is bailing out on his team and not interacting with the rest of the guys. That’s not really something you want to say about a teammate in public. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, that stuff that should stay in the clubhouse.

When Ellis was called about it later, he did offer this defense of his comments:

"Everybody is saying they need to get rid of him, they need to trade him. I think he gets a bad rap," Ellis said by phone. "One thing you can’t say I said about Roy is that he should be traded or let go. I think he should stay my teammate. When someone asks me a question, it’s my job to be on Roy’s side and that’s what I was doing. I don’t think he should go anywhere. He should stay here."

Greg, do yourself a favor. If you want to discuss your own problems with the Cowboys organization like you did the last few years, that’s one thing. But dragging your teammate into it is probably something better left alone.

Hat tip to quincyyyyy for posting this in a FanPost. 

Daniel Polk is trying to follow in the footsteps of Patrick Crayton and Isaiah Stanback. 

Bobby Carpenter, is it his last chance? 

Todd Archer talks WR’s. 

Mickey answers some mail.  Short version: Fasano stunk and was about to lose his job to star of stage and screen Tony Curtis so get something for him. More Jones vs. Mendenhall blather, the secondary is improved but no one is sure what the rotation back there will be. And this statement on the ever-popular Roy Williams (the Dallas one).

Again, [Roy] Williams' poor play at times has less to do with his talent and more to do with his preparation. Camps is already working on that, I understand. And with the plethora of cornerbacks the Cowboys might have, pending Adam Jones' reinstatement, the addition of Zach Thomas and the continued good health of Kevin Burnett, Roy very well might be reduced to a two-down safety even more if he doesn't improve.

We’ve got more special teams return guys now than Jerry’s got money. DC.com explores the subject further. 

Here’s a weird tidbit about the Cowboys trying to sign UDFA’s. 

Maurice Purify wished the only bad thing happening to him Sunday was not being picked in the NFL draft.

Purify was under the impression from Dallas-based agent Gary Glick that he would be, at worst, a late-round draft pick. Instead, he was left to find an interested team along with a number of other undrafted former [Nebraska] Huskers. Only there was this little deal with the Dallas Cowboys and a potential free-agent agreement.

"My agent called me and I said, 'Go ahead with it if the contract is good,'" said Purify, the former Nebraska receiver. Purify could live with going to Dallas. Maybe this was meant to be. "We had something set right after the draft with the Cowboys and it fell through," Purify said Monday. "I guess they had a mixup in their organization and didn't know that they had signed a receiver from Stanford."

Mark Bradford got a ticket to Dallas and Purify another restless night.

Peter Schrager from FOX Sports. 

I had Georgia Tech DE Darrell Robertson going 57th overall in the second round. Robertson was not drafted.         

The myth is that it’s better to be an UDFA than to get drafted in the late rounds. Pat Jones, a former NFL assistant, says the reality is that it’s not, drafted players are treated better. Unless you’re a priority free agent like new Dallas cowboy FB Julius Crosslin. 

There are different levels of free agents. A "priority free agent" like Oklahoma State fullback Julius Crosslin, who signed with the Dallas Cowboys an hour after the draft ended on Sunday, has an advantage over other free agents.

"Unless you're a very high-rated free agent, someone you had a fifth- or sixth-round grade, they're just bringing you in to be a body for training camp," Jones said.

A short introduction  to new UDFA Andrew Brecher of Harvard.  

Harvard offensive tackle Andrew Brecher of Needham agreed to a free agent deal with the Dallas Cowboys. The 6-foot-5, 300-pound Brecher was an all-Ivy League and all-New England selection in 2007, and was named an FCS All-American by the Sports Network after leading the Crimson to the Ivy League title.