The Dead Zone. We don’t have another OTA until May 20^th. Pacman and his team have gone underground and haven’t uttered a peep. Greg Ellis spiced things up briefly but even that has been played-out. The only thing people are really talking about is the Cowboys star-turn in HBO’s Hard Knocks series. Naturally Steve Sabol and crew are very excited about getting the Cowboys to agree to expose their deepest, darkest secrets to a cable audience. Of note is that after the Cowboys did Hard Knocks in 2002, the series was dormant until the Kansas City Chiefs revived it last year. The reason? Besides the Summer Olympics one year, NFL Films couldn’t find a team to agree to do the series. I wonder why? They certainly weren’t going to get access to the Cowboys while the Tuna was here. Now that Jerry Jones is running the team his own way again, and with the affable Wade Phillips as the coach, the Cowboys are back in the business of Hollywood. Not everyone agrees it’s a good idea.

BTB-regular Nelson posted a FanPost wondering if the Cowboys should pursue recently cut Packers receiver Koren Robinson. Pat Kirwan agrees that Dallas should take a look and has Robinson ranked as the #4 talent in the NFL still looking for a team. 

4. Koren Robinson, WR: Just released by the Packers and young enough to still have a good career. He has return skills as well as being a big target. A team like Dallas should take a look at him.

Adam Schefter is also talking free-agents, but he’s discussing the guys for the 2009 season . A couple of Cowboys makes his list of the top-10 potential free agents in 2009.

4. Marion Barber, Cowboys running back –- Last season, one NFC coach said Barber is an elite back in the same class as LaDainian Tomlinson or Adrian Peterson. Now he wants to be paid that way.

8. Terrell Owens, Cowboys wide receiver -– At the age of 34, T.O. is performing like he were 24.

Don Banks does excellent work in breaking down what the 80-man roster limit means now that there are no exemptions for NFL Europe and the limit will be strictly enforced.  

The potential ripple effect that will be spawned by the simmering controversy threatens to impact everything from the amount of throwing starting quarterbacks may be forced to do in camp, to the elevated playing time and risk of injury for veterans this preseason, to the decreased opportunity that rookies will receive in their bids to make an NFL regular-season roster.

One prime example of the difficult internal roster decisions that are now unfolding revolves around the issue of how many specialists teams can afford to bring to camp. Before this year, standard operating procedure was to bring two kickers, two punters and two long-snappers to camp. That's a luxury not likely to continue at the 80-man limit.

There’s a lot more in the article. Check it out.

Spygate lumbers on as we find out the Patriots were not only stealing defensive signals, but went after the Dolphins offensive signals on one occasion. The article also describes how the Patriots organization went from amateur film-makers in the beginning to quite accomplished film-makers by the end of their escapades.

This is a really sad story.  Former Cowboys safety and current Jets player Abram Elam lost his older brother to a shooting death. All the more sad because it’s the third sibling he’s lost to gunfire.

Tell me you didn’t see this coming from a mile away in regards to Bengals WR Chris Henry. 

"There are two teams that I would always love to play for: that's New Orleans and Dallas," Henry said. "New Orleans is home for me. That's always been a big dream of mine. Hopefully I can get in there and sit down with the coaches and maybe have an opportunity to get down there. And Dallas is another team that I've always looked up to as a kid and wanted to play for them."

I say go for it Jerry. If you’re gonna do something, don’t do it halfway! I’m sure you could get some cash under the table from HBO’s "Hard Knocks" to help offset the bill. Pacman and Chris Henry at the same training camp, I smell Emmy. Heck, HBO could just wipe out their regular schedule for the couple of weeks of training camp and turn it into a live show 24/7. Who wouldn’t watch that? Throw in a little Jessica Simpson for sex appeal, mic up Drew Rosenhaus as he negotiates contracts for Marion Barber and T.O. and you’ve got broadcast gold. They could even do a little stunt-casting and dig up Quincy Carter from somewhere and sign him to a contract. Heck, maybe O.J. could be talked into making a comeback.

Eh, maybe not.

Anyway, back in the world of reality, here’s a good article on how "Hard Knocks" is going to work at Oxnard. 

Seven robotic cameras with zoom capabilities will be stuck here and there, around the facilities at Oxnard, Calif. At least four film crews will shoot each day.

A total of 30 producers and editors are assigned to the project. But not even a billionaire owner like Jerry Jones will have any input in what gets shown -- or not shown.

The Cowboys have no input, except maybe if something goes really bad. 

Say Pacman Jones enters an Oxnard strip club. Say an HBO cameraman is there on the street. Say said cameraman flips the switch and records the whole thing. Does that make it to air? Do the Cowboys have a say?

And since I'm not specifically trying to pick on Pacman, what if HBO gets footage of a player getting into a barfight or something like that? Do the producers check with the Cowboys first? Or do they just go ahead and break the news?

"That's hard to say, it depends on what it is," [HBO Sports president Ross] Greenburg said. "My instincts are if we're in the position of actually recording and breaking a news story, we'll have an interesting situation within the offices of NFL Films, HBO and the Dallas Cowboys. I don't know. I can't even answer it. It'd be a case-by-case situation and we'd just have to look at it at that time."

Am I going to have to stakeout all the strip clubs in Oxnard this training camp? For you guys, I would do it.

Hat tip to downsetgo for posting the Henry story in a FanPost.

Back to normal football stuff. Tony Romo failed to qualify for the US Open. Did I say normal football stuff?

 OK, this is sort of normal; we hired another Garrett.

Judd Garrett, the younger brother of Cowboys offensive coordinator Jason Garrett and tight ends coach John Garrett, will be named the team's assistant director of pro scouting, owner Jerry Jones confirmed Wednesday.

Garrett replaces Brian Gaine, who was hired as assistant director of player personnel with the Miami Dolphins in December.