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Are Dallas Cowboys more hesitant to draft players with injury histories than in years past?
By Rainer Sabin
rsabin@dallasnews.com
12:44 pm on February 20, 2014 | Permalink
INDIANAPOLIS — Injuries happen. They’re part of the game. Coaches will often resort to dropping those bromides in news conference after a player goes down. But that cliché has been on the tip of Jason Garrett’s tongue the last two seasons and has been used by him at Teddy Ruxpin-like frequency.
Bad health, after all, has been a team-wide problem for a while now. In 2013, 13 key contributors — including quarterback Tony Romo, linebacker Sean Lee and defensive end DeMarcus Ware — missed a total of 71 games.
Considering that the Cowboys haven’t been able depend on some of their best talent through the NFL 16-game grind, are they now more hesitant to draft a player whose medical history is sketchy?
“I think we have to look at it,” executive vice president Stephen Jones said. “We’ll continue to make decisions based on that. I’m not going to get in each individual one with the media. But we’ve got to look at it.”
Two of Cowboys’ most productive young talents — Lee and running back DeMarco Murray — were periodically hurt in college. At Penn State, Lee tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in 2008 before spraining his left knee a year later. Murray, meanwhile, entered the NFL after suffering turf toe, a dislocated kneecap, a sprained ankle and a ruptured hamstring tendon. Not surprisingly, neither Lee nor Murray has made it through a full season with the Cowboys since turning pro.
While Jones said the organization hasn’t altered its medical grading system for NFL prospects, he explained that the team is being more circumspect when evaluating a player who had a track record of getting hurt in college.
“The bigger thing you look at is when you take a player that is injured is will he overcome it or does he have a chronic history of just having a hard time staying healthy whether it’s by the way he plays, do you think, hey, this was a one-time injury and and he hasn’t been hurt historically and we think he will overcome this injury and go on and be fine?” Jones said.
These are the questions the Cowboys have to seriously consider in the months before the draft because their team has rarely been healthy in recent seasons.
By Rainer Sabin
rsabin@dallasnews.com
12:44 pm on February 20, 2014 | Permalink
INDIANAPOLIS — Injuries happen. They’re part of the game. Coaches will often resort to dropping those bromides in news conference after a player goes down. But that cliché has been on the tip of Jason Garrett’s tongue the last two seasons and has been used by him at Teddy Ruxpin-like frequency.
Bad health, after all, has been a team-wide problem for a while now. In 2013, 13 key contributors — including quarterback Tony Romo, linebacker Sean Lee and defensive end DeMarcus Ware — missed a total of 71 games.
Considering that the Cowboys haven’t been able depend on some of their best talent through the NFL 16-game grind, are they now more hesitant to draft a player whose medical history is sketchy?
“I think we have to look at it,” executive vice president Stephen Jones said. “We’ll continue to make decisions based on that. I’m not going to get in each individual one with the media. But we’ve got to look at it.”
Two of Cowboys’ most productive young talents — Lee and running back DeMarco Murray — were periodically hurt in college. At Penn State, Lee tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in 2008 before spraining his left knee a year later. Murray, meanwhile, entered the NFL after suffering turf toe, a dislocated kneecap, a sprained ankle and a ruptured hamstring tendon. Not surprisingly, neither Lee nor Murray has made it through a full season with the Cowboys since turning pro.
While Jones said the organization hasn’t altered its medical grading system for NFL prospects, he explained that the team is being more circumspect when evaluating a player who had a track record of getting hurt in college.
“The bigger thing you look at is when you take a player that is injured is will he overcome it or does he have a chronic history of just having a hard time staying healthy whether it’s by the way he plays, do you think, hey, this was a one-time injury and and he hasn’t been hurt historically and we think he will overcome this injury and go on and be fine?” Jones said.
These are the questions the Cowboys have to seriously consider in the months before the draft because their team has rarely been healthy in recent seasons.
