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Well, I'm in a much better mood today. First, there was a lot of news out of the second day of the OTA, mainly because they let the media types in to watch. Not all the news was good, and some of was a bit of a surprise, but all in all, it left me feeling rather warm and fuzzy.
One thing I am not addressing in this post is the NFLPA lawsuit, partly because of length, but mostly because of an excellent suggestion by freightgod to keep the legal stuff separate from the "real" football news. So my comments and analysis on that topic will be in another post. And be warned, if you don't cooperate in keeping things segregated, you will be visited by certain members of the community that wish to remain nameless. They will bring a ferret.
Follow after the jump for the on field stuff.
First off, the ever popular Twitter feed. Take a look at the raw stuff, and then we'll take a look at some of the more in-depth coverage from today.
|
Josh Ellis |
The OTA TMI is about is about to get underway. |
|
Josh Ellis |
Just some walk through stuff to start with here, but worth mentioning that WR Raymond Radway looks like he'll be full-go. |
|
Josh Ellis |
David Arkin is your first-team right guard today. Wonder if that changes from week to week while Mackenzy Bernadeau is out. |
|
Todd Archer |
No sign of DWare, MSpears, JRatliff, MBernadeau, MJenkins among vets at Cowboys OTA |
| Josh Ellis |
Third round pick Tyrone Crawford is not practicing. Neither are Jermey Parnell, Kevin Kowalsko or Alex Albright. |
| Rob Phillips |
No Tyrone Crawford (calf) at OTA practice either. That's five of seven draft picks unavailable today. Matt Johnson is still in school |
| Todd Archer |
No practice for Kevin Kowalski and Jermey Parnell. Rookie DE Tyrone Crawford out 2 (calf) |
| Nick Eatman |
Sixth-rounder James Hannah is the highest draft pick practicing today. |
| Josh Ellis |
No DeMarcus Ware, Marcus Spears or Jay Ratliff. And of course Mike Jenkins isn't here either. These are voluntary workouts. |
| Tim MacMahon |
RT |
| Brandon George | LB DeMarcus Ware not at OTAs again today for personal reasons. Also not on field: Jay Ratliff and Marcus Spears. |
| Charean Williams |
DeMarcus Ware isn't at OTAs today. His sister graduated and he still is out of town. |
| Charean Williams |
Jay Ratliff, Marcus Spears and Mike Jenkins also among the missing at OTAs today. |
| Josh Ellis |
Individual drills right now. Can't tell if Andre Holmes is Randy Moss or Randall Williams just yet. |
| DC Fanatic |
From Broaddus - Nagy working at 2nd Center. Kowalski not practicing. |
| Charean Williams |
Felix Jones left the field and has not returned yet. |
| Josh Ellis |
Bruce Carter gets the first run with the No. 1 defense next to Sean Lee. |
| Josh Ellis |
To be honest, though, that first-team D looks about half empty with all the absences. Hard to tell. |
| Josh Ellis |
Ogletree, Akwasi, Dwayne Harris and Dez fielding punts. Radway, Tim Benford and Lance Dunbar fielding kickoffs. |
| Josh Ellis |
Safety Barry Church rolling with the first team defense in 7-on-7. |
| Rob Phillips |
Brandon Carr working at left corner, as expected. Played right at KC. |
| Josh Ellis |
Holmes stoned in bump coverage by Teddy Williams one play, gets position on him and makes a possession-type catch the next rep. |
| Josh Ellis |
Jay Ratliff has arrived. Jersey and sweat pants. Not going to practice. |
| Bryan Broaddus |
Nice drop by Ogletree on a crossing route. Holmes with nice sideline awareness on the next play. |
| Bryan Broaddus | Hakim follows in the steps of Ogletree with a drop on a well thrown |
| Nick Eatman |
WR saalim hakim, brother of former rams WR az hakim, he's really fast... And when it comes to catching ... He's really fast! |
| Josh Ellis |
Practice ends today with full-squad conditioning runs ... Sprints karaoke, et al. |
| Nick Eatman |
Jason Garrett on mike Jenkins ; "he's making a business decision. We're not going to trade him." |
| Todd Archer |
Jason Garrett on Mike Jenkins - We r not going to trade him. |
| Charean Williams |
Felix Jones still is rehabbing his shoulder so he isn't doing much in OTAs. Jason Garrett said he anticipates Jones being cleared by camp. |
| Charean Williams |
Jason Garrett says Danny Coale will have surgery tomorrow and should be back for "Day 1 of training camp." |
| Charean Williams |
Jason Garrett says Mike Jenkins will be a "big part" of this team. "We're not going to trade him." |
| Charean Williams |
Morris Claiborne has pins out of his wrist. He can now run and do conditioning. He said he doesn't expect to be fully cleared until camp. |
| Charean Williams |
Guard David Arkin has returned a better player than his rookie year. He is first team RG right now with Mackenzy out rehabbing. |
| Charean Williams |
Cowboys rookies can't stay healthy. Tyrone Crawford "tweaked his calf" last week and is limited. |
| Calvin Watkins |
Felix Jones had shoulder surgery Jan. 2. Jason Garrett said Jones can't catch a pass yet. Shoul be good for training camp. |
| Calvin Watkins | Dez Bryant said he's more focused on film study and that should help in his development. Cowboys still want him playing 1 spot though, some slot but not very much. |
| Calvin Watkins |
Had good chat with DeMarco Murray. When asked when he forgot about his injury he said "when I started walking." |
| Calvin Watkins |
Got a feeling from talking to 1 of Mike Jenkins' teammates is he'll report for the mandatory minicamp. If not its a $10k per day fine. |
| Calvin Watkins |
I do like Andre Holmes as the No.3 receiver but Kevin Ogletree is the dark horse. |
First-round pick Morris Claiborne still is recovering from left wrist surgery. The cornerback, who is expected to challenge Mike Jenkins for the starting job opposite Brandon Carr, won't be on the field until training camp. Third-round pick Tyrone Crawford injured his calf last week and did not practice. Fourth-rounder Kyle Wilber injured his right index finger in the rookie minicamp two weeks ago. Fourth-rounder Matt Johnson is prohibited by NFL rules from participating until Eastern Washington finishes its spring quarter. Fifth-round pick Danny Coale broke a bone in his foot Tuesday, during the first day of the team's OTAs, and will have surgery Thursday.
I don't know why, but maybe there is a new tradition. Could the team figure that if you get a little ding and miss some time in the pre-season, maybe you will turn into a Sean Lee or a DeMarco Murray? The good news is that nothing is very serious (and Matt Johnson is just unavailable, not missing). Early reports are looking fairly good for having the draftees available when the team heads to Oxnard for training camp. Danny Coale is to have surgery Thursday but is expected back for camp; Mo Claiborne is still expected to be ready then as well, and is getting to do some running and conditioning now, as noted above; the injury to Crawford's calf certainly doesn't sound like it is very bad; and I suspect that Wilber would be playing with his broken finger if this were the regular season, So I am not going to panic, as long as the newbies are out there learning the assignments and formations.
The biggest injury news to come out today was that Felix Jones is recovering from shoulder surgery. This took place in January, apparently at an undisclosed location under strict security and on an absolute need-to-know basis as determined by a secret panel of Valley Ranch insiders, since no one knew about it. The team just snuck the info in today, and the writers here were all asking if anyone else had heard about this. Rabble even came up with the theory that they were hoping everyone would just think they forgot about it and not notice the skullduggery. Anyway, he is working on routes and assignments like the dinged up rookies, and the prognosis looks good.
"All indications are it's the kind of injury that should have a pretty clean recovery," Garrett said. "It seems like it's a simple surgery and, saying that, everyone understands there's no such thing as a simple surgery. But we are relatively optimistic about the doctors going in and fixing that thing and him being back fairly quickly and him being ready to go on Day 1 of training camp."
"I have been doing everything in the past month and a half 100 percent," he said Wednesday. "No limitations. I'm feeling good out there."
For some more tidbits, you can check out ESPN's summary of the day's activity. A sample some will love (and you know who you are):"Dez has really had a good off-season," receivers coach Jimmy Robinson said. "It's just the consistency of route running. I don't know if subtleties is the right word, or if it's just the execution of each individual route on a consistent basis play after play. He has really improved just in the off-season work that we've done."
** Maybe it's the product of not seeing him throw in four months, but Tony Romo was throwing the ball with a tremendous amount of velocity. Romo went 8-of-11 in team and seven-on-seven drills Wednesday with one drop by TE John Phillips.
And if you prefer video updates, you can check the ESPN Dallas crew's observations here.
One final and unrelated note: Several representatives of the Cowboys participated in a home run derby for chartiy at Rangers Ballpark. And the winner: Jason Garrett.