Cowboys Blue & White scrimmage recap: Things you might have missed on Sunday night

If you thought you didn’t get much out of the Blue & White “scrimmages” at the end of the Jason Garrett Era, get a load of the Mike McCarthy-led effort. On Sunday night, fans were treated to.... basically nothing. The three-hour broadcast was missing one small element, actual footage of player’s making plays. To make it harder to track, McCarthy had the team come out in jerseys with no numbers. His explanation:

Head coach Mike McCarthy’s explanation was simple: “competitive advantage and disadvantage.”

“We talked about it this past week and frankly, this is such a unique season on so many fronts,” he said. “I can’t tell you the number of conversations you have about competitive advantage and disadvantage, and frankly with the fact that we were televising the practice here tonight, we would be exposing our younger players to an evaluation process that the other teams really are not exposing their team to. That was the reason behind going with the white and blue shirts this evening.”

There was some news and interesting points to come out of the “scrimmage” so let’s take a look.

Wide receiver Ventell Bryant was injured during the proceedings, but at least he didn’t suffer an ACL tear. It’s still unknown just how long he will be out.

Xavier Woods also came up lame, but it looks like it’s not serious.

The starting safety appeared to injure his groin during the Cowboys Night practice at the stadium. Woods limped straight off the field and to the locker room. He later returned to the sideline in street clothes.

When asked about both Ventell Bryant and Woods, head coach Mike McCarthy didn’t seem overly concerned about either injury.

There were multiple reports of Woods smiling and joking with teammates after he came back from the injury, so the guess is that it’s a minor thing.

As for the action, there were some reports including a successful drive led by Dak Prescott.

Easily the highlight of the night came when Dak Prescott led the offense on a two-minute drill toward the tail end of practice. Prescott guided his group roughly 65 yards in eight plays – all of them completions. He started things off with a short out to CeeDee Lamb, then found tight ends on five consecutive completions. Following that, a short dump off to Ezekiel Elliott put them just inside the red zone. From there, Noah Brown got behind his coverage on a flag route and Prescott found him for the best completion of the night – a touchdown.

Here is the touchdown.

Don’t sleep on Noah Brown. We know he can block, he should be of use on special teams, and now he’s making plays as a receiver. He looks certain to make the team.

Also of note on that drive was just how much Prescott used his tight ends.

Speaking of tight ends, Dalton Schultz looks like he’s securing his playing time in 2020.

For all the Tony Pollard truthers out there, it looks like he’s going to get some real use alongside Ezekiel Elliott this year. The guy has talent, good to see it’s being put to use.

One other offensive note, Michael Gallup got himself a score on the evening.

There was some defensive action, too. The Cowboys defensive line looks fierce.

As always, it’s tough to chart sacks in a practice where the quarterbacks can’t be touched, but it certainly looked as though the edge rushers were active. DeMarcus Lawrence had a good chance at two sacks, including one on the final snap of the night. Aldon Smith also appeared to sack Prescott on back-to-back reps at one point. Among the young players, Bradlee Anae once again seemed to notch another sack while working against the other youngsters on the offensive line.

When Robert Quinn left, there was much consternation about what would happen next. That seems like a long time ago.

Special teams anyone? We had a Greg Zuerlein miss, but it was from 60 yards. He quickly nailed a followup.

Greg Zuerlein had his first miss of training camp, though it was from 60 yards. The Cowboys’ new kicker hit his other five kicks from the usual distances, giving him a mark of 29-of-29. From there, the coaching staff decided to try him from the midfield logo, and he missed just wide right. He got a redo, and he drilled it from the same distance. So officially, Zuerlein is 30-of-31 – a hit rate of 97% — with a long of 60 yards.

There were reports that Cedrick Wilson and Tony Pollard were doing much of the duty on kick returns.

As for punting...

Lamb could be dangerous back there. But what about Chris Jones punting? The Cowboys didn’t bring in any serious competition for him. They feel pretty confident he’s back.

One final special teams note, and it involves a pet cat.