Orsborn: Escobar pick has Cowboys scheming

BipolarFuk

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By Tom Orsborn, Staff Writer


With their selection of San Diego State tight end Gavin Escobar in the second round of the draft last week, the Dallas Cowboys breathed new life into the old belief that the NFL is a copycat league.

The Cowboys want to couple Escobar with Pro Bowl tight end Jason Witten to employ a New England Patriots-style offense.

“They're a good role model for us,” owner Jerry Jones said of the Patriots, whose two tight-end sets featuring Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez have sizzled the last three years.

“They've got a quarterback in (Tom) Brady,” Jones added, per DallasCowboys.com. “They've done a good job of having an offensive team, and they've given up a little bit on their defense. They want to score points.”

The thinking in Dallas is clear: Surround franchise quarterback Tony Romo with playmakers, give him better blocking, and let the offense win games.

But before taking Escobar, Jones made sure his coaches were on board with his desire to follow the Patriots' roadmap to becoming an offensive juggernaut.

“Are we all resolved to doing it different relative to injecting that influence in this offense?” Jones said of his conversation with coach Jason Garrett and his offensive assistants. “Don't come in here with the same old same old. ... If we go this route with the tight end, we are going to shake it up around here. It's going to be different.”

How different is yet to be determined, although there has been talk of the Cowboys even using a three tight-end set with Witten, Escobar and second-year pro James Hanna.

“This is a guy who can come in and really make a difference for us at that tight end spot opposite Witten,” Garrett said of Escobar. “We feel Witten is arguably as good a tight end as there is in the NFL. When you add somebody else inside at that position with this guy's length, athleticism and pass-catching ability to go along with our outside receivers, it can be a challenging personnel group for defenses.”

The 6-foot-6, 255-pound Escobar caught 122 passes for 1,646 yards and 17 touchdowns at San Diego State. As a junior in 2012, he had 42 catches for 543 yards and six TDs.

“Catching the ball is my greatest strength,” Escobar said. “I'm very reliable, a big target, lots of red-zone mismatches. Plus because of my heritage, I should be able to help sell jerseys to Mexicans. At least that's what Jerry tells me.”

Garrett exchanged high-fives in the draft room when he realized Escobar was there for the taking.

“We like his length, his athleticism,” Garrett said. “He's a natural pass catcher. He can make plays over his head, and we feel like he has the traits to be a wide tight end at some point.”

But the pick wasn't without its critics. Many view Escobar as more wideout than tight end, and he admitted he needs work as a blocker.

Others point out Dallas has tried this before, picking Anthony Fasano in the second round in 2006 and Texas A&M's Martellus Bennett in the second round in 2008. Neither, though, worked out as a complementary piece to Witten.

“We had packages we worked on for weeks, but he didn't show,” Jones said of Bennett.

But Escobar isn't Bennett. He's eager to learn from Witten and fit in any way he can.

“You couldn't ask for a better place for a rookie tight end to land,” Escobar said. “Just being able to learn from Jason Witten is going to be great. ... It's a huge thing for the offense to have two tight ends that can spread out and be interchangeable.”

Just ask the Patriots.

“They're a team we'll study in the offseason,” Garrett told DallasCowboys.com. “They're a good example for us.”
 

E_D_Guapo

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Garrett exchanged high-fives in the draft room when he realized Escobar was there for the taking.
:jerk

I remember how stoked Garrett was when they drafted David Arkin. Nothing but smiles and high fives around the war room and Garrett seemed to be as excited as anyone, if not moreso.
 

BipolarFuk

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:jerk

I remember how stoked Garrett was when they drafted David Arkin. Nothing but smiles and high fives around the war room and Garrett seemed to be as excited as anyone, if not moreso.
They show Garrett a copy of his paycheck right after every draft pick.
 

VA Cowboy

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The Cowboys want to couple Escobar with Pro Bowl tight end Jason Witten to employ a New England Patriots-style offense.

“They're a good role model for us,” owner Jerry Jones said of the Patriots, whose two tight-end sets featuring Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez have sizzled the last three years.

“They've got a quarterback in (Tom) Brady,” Jones added, per DallasCowboys.com. “They've done a good job of having an offensive team, and they've given up a little bit on their defense. They want to score points.”

The thinking in Dallas is clear: Surround franchise quarterback Tony Romo with playmakers, give him better blocking, and let the offense win games.
:picard

Yeah, let's emulate a team that gives up tons of points and hasn't won a SB in almost a decade. Brilliant. And the main reason they've even been in contention is because of Brady. And Romo is no Brady.

You need a QB, a strong defense and OL. But yeah, we'll go with a mistake-prone QB, two TE's and a bunch of high valued DB's.
 

Cowboysrock55

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:picard

Yeah, let's emulate a team that gives up tons of points and hasn't won a SB in almost a decade. Brilliant. And the main reason they've even been in contention is because of Brady. And Romo is no Brady.

You need a QB, a strong defense and OL. But yeah, we'll go with a mistake-prone QB, two TE's and a bunch of high valued DB's.
I can't wait to see a 3 TE set that we still can't run out of. If you can't run out of that formation it creates absolutely no mismatches or problems for a defense. Everyone thinks that TE's create some massive mismatch for defenses. Just cover them like you would WR's and force the team to try and run on you. Dallas won't be able to run still and now you have no advantage, you just made your entire offense slower for no reason.
 

Texas Ace

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“They're a good role model for us,” owner Jerry Jones said of the Patriots, whose two tight-end sets featuring Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez have sizzled the last three years.

“They've got a quarterback in (Tom) Brady,” Jones added, per DallasCowboys.com. “They've done a good job of having an offensive team, and they've given up a little bit on their defense. They want to score points.”
Funny how this dumbass doesn't consider them to be a good role model in the area that really counts - ownership.

I wish he'd be as eager to copy their model of the owner staying out of the limelight and leaving all of the football decisions to the head coach and general manager.
 

UncleMilti

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“Catching the ball is my greatest strength,” Escobar said. “I'm very reliable, a big target, lots of red-zone mismatches. Plus because of my heritage, I should be able to help sell jerseys to Mexicans. At least that's what Jerry tells me.”
:lol
 

Bluestar71

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You can't scheme your way out of piss poor blocking. If we had even an average run/pass-blocking OL our offense would likely be in the top third of the league or better even with Garrett's predictable nature. I don't know why these idiots will go to such great lengths to do everything but fix the most obvious problem.
 

junk

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I can't wait to see a 3 TE set that we still can't run out of. If you can't run out of that formation it creates absolutely no mismatches or problems for a defense. Everyone thinks that TE's create some massive mismatch for defenses. Just cover them like you would WR's and force the team to try and run on you. Dallas won't be able to run still and now you have no advantage, you just made your entire offense slower for no reason.
I don't even think the two TE set creates all these mismatches that people think it does.

Where has it ever worked? NE? They spent forever trying to get the personnel to make it work.
 

1bigfan13

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Funny how this dumbass doesn't consider them to be a good role model in the area that really counts - ownership.

I wish he'd be as eager to copy their model of the owner staying out of the limelight and leaving all of the football decisions to the head coach and general manager.
That's the first thing I thought of when reading those opening sentences. It's not the two TEs that make the Patriots successful, it's that they have sound ownership and management.

I still don't believe we'll see much success with the two TE set. Garrett's coaching limitations were on full display last season. On a weekly basis Garrett struggled to put a successful game plan together. Therefore, I have absolutely no confidence in his ability to create a scheme that will fully utilize Escobar.

I think I've said before that I'm penciling Escobar in for approximately 20 receptions on the year.
 

Genghis Khan

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The thinking in Dallas is clear: Surround franchise quarterback Tony Romo with playmakers, give him better blocking, and let the offense win games.

This is the thinking in Dallas?
 

Clay_Allison

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The biggest challenge to making the 2-TE thing work is the running game. You have to establish a threat to attack the perimeter with sweeps and quick tosses and block effectively with pulling linemen then you have to be able to counter with counters, traps and draws up the middle.

If you can pull that off and run effectively against the nickel defenses and force teams to try to mix in their base defense to stop the run then those mismatches can occur.

If you can't do that you might as well go 4 wide and spread out the defense and resign yourself to running draws and screens instead of actually establishing a running game.
 

Smitty

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Too bad we can't run the ball and we just passed on the opportunity to get a legit run blocking RT.
 

1bigfan13

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Too bad we can't run the ball and we just passed on the opportunity to get a legit run blocking RT.
I struggle to understand the thought process of those in charge. Hell, you'd think Garrett would be adamant that we upgrade the OL He saw first hand what a great OL does for a team.
 

Smitty

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I struggle to understand the thought process of those in charge. Hell, you'd think Garrett would be adamant that we upgrade the OL He saw first hand what a great OL does for a team.
You'd think. Instead Romo seems to be the one upset about the state of the OL the most.
 

boozeman

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I struggle to understand the thought process of those in charge. Hell, you'd think Garrett would be adamant that we upgrade the OL He saw first hand what a great OL does for a team.
So did Jerry.

Doesn't mean they understood what they were looking at.
 

Cotton

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I have yet to see a single quote from Romo about the OL.
He said it while he was super busy at Valley Ranch writing scouting reports for every TE in the draft.
 
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