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Fact or fiction: Jones says ‘we like where we are at safety.’
Posted on February 24, 2014 | BY TOM ORSBORN
INDIANAPOLIS – Cowboys owner Jerry Jones left a few of us scratching our heads when he told us on his bus Sunday that “we like where we are at safety.”
Granted, Barry Church is solid, but the play of rookies J.J. Wilcox and Jeff Heath underwhelmed least last season. Granted, Wilcox played only one college season at the position and Heath was undrafted, but neither impressed in their stints as starters for a horrendously bad defense.
Then there’s injury-prone Matt Johnson, who was placed on injured reserve last August and has yet to play in a regular-season game since he was drafted in the fourth round in April 2012.
So perhaps when Jones said he likes the safeties he was really saying he’s willing to be patient with Wilcox and Heath. Or maybe he was just putting up a smoke screen to hide the club’s intentions of targeting either Louisville’s Calvin Pryor or Alabama’s Ha Ha Clinton-Dix in the first round with the 16th overall pick.
Here’s what the NFL Network’s Mike Mayock had to say about both players in his post-combine news conference Sunday:
“Calvin Pryor, if I had a list of my 10 favorite players just because of watching them on tape, Calvin Pryor is one of them,” Mayock said. “He’s like a bigger Bob Sanders (the former Indianapolis Colts stalwart). I think he’s better in the box. Ha Ha Clinton-Dix is better back off. He has more range and ball skills back there.”
In his most recent mock draft, ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. had the Cowboys selecting Clinton-Dix. And let’s not forget that Cowboys coach Jason Garrett has a deep respect for Alabama coach Nick Saban, who, Clinton-Dix, says prepared him well for the pros.
“Playing for coach Saban’s defense, we did a lot of things,” he said. “We played nickel, dime, Cover 2…We played a lot of different defenses.”
It’s still way too early to pinpoint the Cowboys draft plan, but if I had to guess, I’d say they’d be pretty happy if either Pryor or Clinton-Dix was still on the board when they are on the clock May 8.
Posted on February 24, 2014 | BY TOM ORSBORN
INDIANAPOLIS – Cowboys owner Jerry Jones left a few of us scratching our heads when he told us on his bus Sunday that “we like where we are at safety.”
Granted, Barry Church is solid, but the play of rookies J.J. Wilcox and Jeff Heath underwhelmed least last season. Granted, Wilcox played only one college season at the position and Heath was undrafted, but neither impressed in their stints as starters for a horrendously bad defense.
Then there’s injury-prone Matt Johnson, who was placed on injured reserve last August and has yet to play in a regular-season game since he was drafted in the fourth round in April 2012.
So perhaps when Jones said he likes the safeties he was really saying he’s willing to be patient with Wilcox and Heath. Or maybe he was just putting up a smoke screen to hide the club’s intentions of targeting either Louisville’s Calvin Pryor or Alabama’s Ha Ha Clinton-Dix in the first round with the 16th overall pick.
Here’s what the NFL Network’s Mike Mayock had to say about both players in his post-combine news conference Sunday:
“Calvin Pryor, if I had a list of my 10 favorite players just because of watching them on tape, Calvin Pryor is one of them,” Mayock said. “He’s like a bigger Bob Sanders (the former Indianapolis Colts stalwart). I think he’s better in the box. Ha Ha Clinton-Dix is better back off. He has more range and ball skills back there.”
In his most recent mock draft, ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. had the Cowboys selecting Clinton-Dix. And let’s not forget that Cowboys coach Jason Garrett has a deep respect for Alabama coach Nick Saban, who, Clinton-Dix, says prepared him well for the pros.
“Playing for coach Saban’s defense, we did a lot of things,” he said. “We played nickel, dime, Cover 2…We played a lot of different defenses.”
It’s still way too early to pinpoint the Cowboys draft plan, but if I had to guess, I’d say they’d be pretty happy if either Pryor or Clinton-Dix was still on the board when they are on the clock May 8.
