Lebreton: Disobedient Cowboys run right into trouble

Disobedient Cowboys run right into trouble
Posted Thursday, Jul. 24, 2014

BY GIL LEBRETON
glebreton@star-telegram.com

OXNARD, Calif. — lebreton Since a campfire and a chorus of Kumbaya wasn’t in the cards, the Dallas Cowboys decided to bond this week over a good, healthy jog.

Except, in somewhat Cowboy-typical fashion, the head coach had just told them, more or less, not to do that.

And when they did run — all in the name, they say, of teamwork and conditioning — guard Ron Leary strained a hamstring, which caused him to be placed Thursday on the physically unable to perform list.

You can’t make this stuff up. For Jerry Jones’ Cowboys, everyday realities have often seemed stranger than fiction.

Like the “haircut” (wink, wink) that Michael Irvin once gave Everett McIver. And like the time Owner Jones paid $120,000 to turn a parking lot at the Alamodome into a temporary sod practice field, but Emmitt Smith nixed the idea on the first day.

This one, at least, seemed to start out harmlessly enough.

As head coach Jason Garrett explained Wednesday, “The conditioning test is an age-old issue in the NFL. The way they’re typically set up is you might be on a plane, you might have a long drive, and you come to training camp on Day 1, and you do this conditioning test.

“I expressed to our leadership group at minicamp that I was uncomfortable with how training camp starts, to do a conditioning test and then go aggressively into practice the first few days. I feel like it’s a recipe for disaster.

“We’ve had some issues in the past year. So I just told our players that we’re not going to do that.”

But Garrett’s band of troublemakers couldn’t help themselves.

As tight end Jason Witten explained, “I just felt like we needed to run. It was important to us.”

Leary contended Thursday that his injury was “nothing serious, just minor.” But for a guy fighting for a starting job, a few doctor-mandated days away from the practice field can’t possibly help.

To his credit, Garrett acted like it was no big deal.

“I know guys work out a lot together,” he said. “A lot of our players live in Dallas. They lift together. They run together. They throw together. I think this is probably just an extension of that. Guys are trying to get ready to play football.”

Garrett seemed surprised, in fact, that the media was even asking about the unscheduled run at all.

But it scratches an old Cowboys wound, the notion that, except for the Bill Parcells years, the inmates have ruled the asylum. Who, indeed, is in charge here, except for Jones when he writes out the checks?

“I think there’s more being made out of this than it probably should have,” team leader Witten suggested.

“Nobody has got more respect for coach Garrett than I and the leaders on this team do. He’s just a heckuva football coach, and we’re lucky to have him as a head coach. I think we all know we’re on the same page. We would never go against him.”

This, however, is also the same team that once thought the best way to prepare for a playoff game was a weekend in Cabo. And that, sure, it would be OK to let Josh Brent stand on the sideline, just a week after his drunken driving had killed a teammate.

Coaches are coaches for a reason. Players should listen to them. Or somebody could get hurt.

Oops. You say Ron Leary won’t practice until next week?

“As a player, everyone always complained about it,” Garrett said of the camp-opening conditioning test. “It’s just something that, given the foundation we laid in the off-season, the maturity of our team, the leadership on our team, I just really entrusted them and had a conversation with them and shared with them what my concerns were, and how we were going to handle it.”

It was only running, tight end Witten repeated. No one hoisted a Jolly Roger or anything.

Let me make a suggestion, though, before anyone heads off to Tahiti on next Monday’s day off.

Listen to the head coach. He’s trying to establish some order and accountability here. It’s a process.

Don’t turn a simple order into ... well ... a haircut.

Notice how Witten's comments say only that the leaders on this team believe in Garrett. Probably happens to be those who go on playmates with him.

Ask the 53rd guy on the roster that.

This logic from Garrett doesn't make sense to me.

He says it's a recipe for disaster to go from conditioning immediately to hard practices. Wouldn't it be a much bigger problem to go from nothing immediately to hard practices? It seems to me like the logical solution would be to scale back the first couple days of practice, not eliminate conditioning. The conditioning test is supposed to tell them who is ready for all those hard practices.

And this article seems to support this notion that it's the test's fault when players get hurt. So Leary would have just walked into hard practices right away and not gotten hurt?

Someone help me out. I don't understand.

I think Garrett wanted to work the players into the conditioning and training drills more gradually specifically to prevent injuries like what happened to Leary.

And it's not like he was injured during a team-organized activity. Some players just decided to run on their own.

This team is under constant scrutiny, and this is next to nothing. Hell, it is nothing compared with Irvin stabbing McIver, but LeBreton felt he had to mention that just to drum something up.

Mickey says it was basically ordered that the team do it on their own prior to arriving. Since the coaches can't be involved prior to camp, it had to be led by Witten and Co.

Makes more sense than assuming that the players snuck it right by every coach's nose who were all at the Ranch that day and just didn't happen to notice what was going on outside.

And yes, it was done early this way so that the players weren't hitting the practice field the day after conditioning day.

mschmidt64 said:

Mickey says it was basically ordered that the team do it on their own prior to arriving. Since the coaches can't be involved prior to camp, it had to be led by Witten and Co.

Makes more sense than assuming that the players snuck it right by every coach's nose who were all at the Ranch that day and just didn't happen to notice what was going on outside.

And yes, it was done early this way so that the players weren't hitting the practice field the day after conditioning day.

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Yep.

mschmidt64 said:

Mickey says it was basically ordered that the team do it on their own prior to arriving.

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That doesn't make any sense. Why would the coach says he doesn't want to do it and then turn around and tell the players to do it themselves? I think Mickey is just pumping bullshit into the story to help Garrett save face.

Iamtdg said:

That doesn't make any sense. Why would the coach says he doesn't want to do it and then turn around and tell the players to do it themselves? I think Mickey is just pumping bullshit into the story to help Garrett save face.

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Mickey wants to make Garrett sound smart, like in his RHGeniusness he found some clever way to work around the CBA limits to prepare his team.

Anyways, this article is less than meaningless and reeks of a slow news week.

Iamtdg said:

That doesn't make any sense. Why would the coach says he doesn't want to do it and then turn around and tell the players to do it themselves? I think Mickey is just pumping bullshit into the story to help Garrett save face.

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Makes more sense than the players just decided to do something that players since the beginning of time have hated doing. I don't know very many people that would chose to run a series of wind sprints (in the Texas heat, no less) when given the option of NOT doing them.

And the way things have been described is confusing. From what we've been told, Garrett said he didn't want the players to do them when they got to Oxnard. Then turn around the very next day and start practicing. Now, they can't come right out and admit that they told the players to run them prior to leaving. If so, that would be considered an organized event. Which would be in direct violation of the CBA. So instead, this was a "players decision" to do so.

Iamtdg said:

That doesn't make any sense. Why would the coach says he doesn't want to do it and then turn around and tell the players to do it themselves? I think Mickey is just pumping bullshit into the story to help Garrett save face.

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Uh... Cause if he told the players to do it, it's a violation of the CBA.

It completely fits when you take into account the statements he made about not wanting the players to hit the practice field immediately after conditioning. Loophole? Have a "player organized" and "voluntary" conditioning run a few days before camp.

Makes sense to me. Whether he's right about it being beneficial or not is another issue, but there's no doubt that's what happened.

NoDak said:

Makes more sense than the players just decided to do something that players since the beginning of time have hated doing. I don't know very many people that would chose to run a series of wind sprints (in the Texas heat, no less) when given the option of NOT doing them.

And the way things have been described is confusing. From what we've been told, Garrett said he didn't want the players to do them when they got to Oxnard. Then turn around the very next day and start practicing. Now, they can't come right out and admit that they told the players to run them prior to leaving. If so, that would be considered an organized event. Which would be in direct violation of the CBA. So instead, this was a "players decision" to do so.

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Yeah, that Garrett sure is a sneaky mofo.

mschmidt64 said:

Uh... Cause if he told the players to do it, it's a violation of the CBA.

It completely fits when you take into account the statements he made about not wanting the players to hit the practice field immediately after conditioning. Loophole? Have a "player organized" and "voluntary" conditioning run a few days before camp.

Makes sense to me. Whether he's right about it being beneficial or not is another issue, but there's no doubt that's what happened.

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So, you're saying that Garrett was trying to keep it hush hush and the team's own freakin' mouthpiece steps up to let the cat out of the bag?

C'mon.

Absolutely.

Iamtdg said:

So, you're saying that Garrett was trying to keep it hush hush and the team's own freakin' mouthpiece steps up to let the cat out of the bag?

C'mon.

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Nobody in the league gives a shit what Mickey says on his radio show. Garrett maintains plausible deniability.

Insisting this is some ridiculous player rebellion -- by noted Garrett BFFs Witten and Romo no less -- is even more absurd and is only latched into by people who want to see every Garrett move as a blunder.

Iamtdg said:

Yeah, that Garrett sure is a sneaky mofo.

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I'll be right there with you saying he struggles mightily as a game day coach, and has his fair share of warts. But the guy isn't an idiot.

You guys are just looking for a reason to bitch over this. It's nothing. I'm sure you'll have legitimate reasons to cry before opening kickoff. And plenty of them after.

mschmidt64 said:

Insisting this is some ridiculous player rebellion -- by noted Garrett BFFs Witten and Romo no less -- is even more absurd and is only latched into by people who want to see every Garrett move as a blunder.

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Boom. Anybody with a brain could/should see this.

mschmidt64 said:

Nobody in the league gives a shit what Mickey says on his radio show. Garrett maintains plausible deniability.

Insisting this is some ridiculous player rebellion -- by noted Garrett BFFs Witten and Romo no less -- is even more absurd and is only latched into by people who want to see every Garrett move as a blunder.

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I'm not buying it.

NoDak said:

I'll be right there with you saying he struggles mightily as a game day coach, and has his fair share of warts. But the guy isn't an idiot.

You guys are just looking for a reason to bitch over this. It's nothing. I'm sure you'll have legitimate reasons to cry before opening kickoff. And plenty of them after.

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It's the very end of yet another long offseason. What do you expect?

Iamtdg said:

I'm not buying it.

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Yeah.... Sorry 'bout my last comment.

NoDak said:

Yeah.... Sorry 'bout my last comment.

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It's cool. In the grand scheme of things, you're right, this is a WGAS, but I'm bored, mmkay?