By my count, the Cowboys as of today have 86 players on their roster. And these players hail from all over the place. The interactive map above shows how many players were born in which state. The darker a state, the more players were born in that state. Move over a state with your mouse and you'll see how many and which players were born there.
With roster cuts approaching, here's your chance to pick your pet cat based on where a player was born.
Question: How many players currently on the Cowboys roster were not born in the continental U.S.? And no, this is not a trick question, we don't have any players on the roster born in Alaska or Hawaii. The answer and more after the jump.
Here are the players not born in the continental U.S.: Delbert Alvarado, P, Honduras; Junior Aumavae, DT, American Samoa; Mike Jenkins, CB, Germany; L.P. Ladouceur, LS, Canada; Mat McBriar, P, Australia; Igor Olshansky, DE, USSR; Junior Siavii, DT, American Samoa. Contrary to a popularly held belief, Akwasi Owusu-Ansah was not born in Ghana but in Florida. That's a total of seven players born outside the U.S.A. Whodathunkit?
Here are some more facts:
14 of the 86 players were born in the great state of Texas, making it the biggest contributor to the team. California (9), Florida (6), Georgia (5), New Jersey (5) and New York (5) also contributed at least a handful of players.
Thirteen states have have only one player on the Cowboys roster.
Excluding the foreign born players, 28 states contributed at least one player to the current roster.
Houston (Martellus Bennett, Andre Gurode, Danny McCray), Oklahoma City (Bryan McCann, Donovan Woods) and Pittsburgh (Sean Lee, Barry Church) are the only cities with multiple Cowboys players born within their city limits.
There are only eight instances where two players playing the same position were born in the same state. Every other player at a given position is alone in representing his state. With one exception. There is one state has a virtual stranglehold on a specific position: five wide receivers were born in Texas (Dez Bryant, Roy Williams, Patrick Crayton, Sam Hurd and Manuel Johnson). Coincidence? Hmmm...
Based on the geography outlined in the map above, which Cowboys player is your pet cat entering training camp? It's pretty straightforward for me: based on my current area of residence, I now feel a special affinity for the Germany-born Mike Jenkins, although I myself was born closer to Australia than to Germany. Based on this minor technicality, I take Junior Aumavae as my rookie pet cat.