This morning’s practice was shorts and shoulder pads only and a lot of players were missing. All of the usual guys who were injured before didn’t participate, Terrell Owens didn’t even show up on the practice field and for some reason Kyle Kosier wasn’t out there either. I hope they were just resting him and he’s not injured. Flozell Adams also did not practice.
Terence Newman decided to participate in the WR/TE/RB warm up passing drills; maybe he’s lobbying Wade to get him some plays on offense. More than likely, he was just messing around. With Flozell and Colombo out, McQ and Doug Free ran with the first unit at tackle and Cory Procter filled in for Kosier. The offense practiced the two-minute drill complete with spiking the ball.
After stretching they did a session of 11-on-11 but it wasn’t full speed so I won’t go through the plays on that. A few things that happened were MB3 got the first plays with the starting unit instead of JJ, but I wouldn’t read too much into that. Miles Austin got some reps with the first team when they went to three WR’s and made a nice grab deep over the middle on a pass that was high.
They practiced goal line offense, again not at full speed, and some of their plays consisted of pulling L. Davis over to the left for an MB3 run, a few plays of straight ahead power running and a bootleg pass to either the RB or TE.
The kickers got a chance to practice FG’s and both Gramatica and Fold made their kicks from 23, 27, 37 and 47 yards. They also did some kickoffs with Gramatica’s traveling to the 8 and 3-yard line while Folk’s went to the 3 and 1-yard line.
They finished practice with an extended session of 11-on-11 that was full speed. Romo ran a bootleg pass to Fasano then they ran the ball and Cory Procter got a nice block on a blitz from A. Ayodele. From the shotgun Romo threw a pass low on an out to Crayton that ended up incomplete, the formation had both JJ and MB3 in the backfield split on either side of Romo. Hoyte dropped a dump off pass that was right in his hands then they pulled L. Davis on a sweep to MB3.
Johnson started with a dump pass to MB3, TT ran the ball to the left side then Johnson connected with Witten who ran a pretty route to beat Blair Phillips. Matt Moore handed off to Jackie Battle but Spears destroyed Steve Franklin to make the tackle. Moore tried to hit Rabb on a crossing route but Henry broke up the pass and Hamlin thought he should have intercepted it so he did his pushups.
Romo was back on and hit Witten, Bowen then broke through for a sack but the play continued and JJ caught a dump pass and made a nice run afterwards. JJ tried the middle for a few yards, then Fasano put a nice block on Carpenter to open up an MB3 run. Next came the best play of the day when Hurd ran a post and Romo connected with him just past the outstretched hand of a leaping Quincy Butler for a TD.
Johnson was sacked on his first play by Canty who busted through the line, then Montavious Stanley disrupted a running play with penetration into the backfield. Johnson tried to hit Austin deep but Newman had tight coverage. Bartel subbed in and was immediately sacked by Ware who scorched James Marten. Battle tried a middle run but A. Ayodele stuffed it.
Romo came on in the shotgun but the coverage was too good and he took a sack. He then hit JJ in the flats, MB3 tried a run but K. Davis tripped him up, and Crayton caught one underneath. Romo finished his day by handing to TT who had a nice hole on the right side. Johnson hit Andy Thorn in the flats, then connected with Jamel Richardson underneath, followed by a run up the middle from Hoyte. Matt Moore threw high to Austin over the middle but he jumped up to make the catch in front of Watkins.
That was pretty much it. Kind of a slow practice because they weren’t in full pads and so many veterans were missing. I did a wrap up video with Shango after the practice, click on the link in the right-hand bar above the diaries section to watch it. There’s another practice this afternoon.