MacMahon: Morris Claiborne: 'I know I deserve to start'

Carp

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IRVING, Texas -- Maybe Morris Claiborne is delusional. Maybe he's just in denial. Perhaps he's simply too proud or embarrassed to admit the obvious. Or entitlement could be the issue.

Those are the only reasonable explanations for the demoted Dallas Cowboys cornerback refusing to acknowledge the reality that Orlando Scandrick is a significantly better player than him.

"I'm not going to sit here and say, 'No, I don't deserve to start,' because I know I deserve to start," Claiborne said. "But that's not what the coaches see."

What makes Claiborne believe that he merits a starting job?

"Because I've worked, I've worked for it," Claiborne said. "Night and day, I've worked."

Well, working hard is one of the minimum requirements for NFL players, kind of like attending practices and team meetings. Claiborne has reaped the rewards for excelling at that minimum requirement, earning one of the Cowboys' offseason awards and the accompanying, plum parking spot at the team's Valley Ranch facility.

Playing time, however, should always be decided by performance. That was the case here, making it an easy call for the Cowboys' coaches to decide that the sixth overall pick in the 2012 draft isn't a starter.

There is no argument that makes a lick of football sense for Claiborne keeping the starting job.

The only reason this decision is big news is because Claiborne reacted so poorly, acting like a spoiled kid who didn't get his way. He turned it into a national circus by walking out on the team Tuesday, explaining a day later that he didn't appreciate how the decision was relayed to him.

Maybe the coaches could have communicated better. Perhaps they should have made it clear to Claiborne that he'd just keep the spot warm while Scandrick served his suspension unless he played two of the best games of his terribly disappointing career.

Of course, the coaches were probably worried about pumping up a fragile ego that was crushed last season, when Claiborne first lost the starting job. Scandrick seized it and was clearly the Cowboys' best cornerback, faint as that praise might be.

You could make the case that Scandrick lost the right to start when he popped a Molly on a Mexican beach in April, leading to his suspension. But Scandrick gives the Cowboys a much better chance to win than Claiborne, a fact that probably seems fairly important to a head coach in the final season of his contract.

It offends Claiborne that the coaches would rather start Scandrick? That's funny. If Scandrick wasn't on his best behavior, he might take a few jabs at his moping backup. But Scandrick bit his tongue and just pointed to performance to justify the depth chart.

"I feel like I had a good year last year and I feel like it carried over into training camp," Scandrick said. "I feel like I'm still ascending as a player, and yes, I do feel like I earned a right to play full time."

All Claiborne has earned is a lot of criticism and the parking spot that he ran to while pouting Tuesday.
 

Cowboysrock55

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Like he worked all preseason sitting on the bench nursing a phantom injury?
 

L.T. Fan

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I am glad he did this . Maybe all the blowback will make him rethink his career and what it really takes to maintain your job.
 

UncleMilti

This seemed like a good idea at the time.
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If this doesn't serve as his wakeup call that translates to the field, then it is truly over for him to be the elite player everyone hoped he'd be.
 

Clay_Allison

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If this doesn't serve as his wakeup call that translates to the field, then it is truly over for him to be the elite player everyone hoped he'd be.
If this doesn't serve as a wakeup call it's truly over for him to be even an adequate player.
 

UncleMilti

This seemed like a good idea at the time.
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midswat

... soon
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The guy is a douche. Hope he suffers a catastrophic knee injury.
 

1bigfan13

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He'll be out of the league soon enough. Injury-prone players with below average talent aren't long for this league.

Although I must admit that that comment about him "deserving to start" irritates the hell out of me every time I see it.
 

lostxn

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Claiborne biggest bust in Cowboys history
September, 23, 2014
SEP 23
11:00
PM ET
By Tim MacMahon | ESPNDallas.com
26878COMMENTS58EMAILPRINT

IRVING, Texas -- Just to be clear, Dallas Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones didn't really criticize Morris Claiborne hours before the demoted cornerback’s hasty departure from the team facility.

Jones acknowledged the painfully obvious about as delicately as possible.

"Is he what we had hoped for at this point when we drafted him with the sixth overall pick, giving up the [second-round] pick to go up to the sixth pick to get him? No," Jones said in a radio interview on 105.3 The Fan. "But he's going to be a good player."


Claiborne
That's an awfully optimistic view of a third-year cornerback who has been picked on consistently throughout his career. Of course, it’s coming from the same mouth that declared that Claiborne was the Cowboys’ top-graded cornerback draft prospect since Deion Sanders when they made the bold move to trade up for him.

If Jones wanted to criticize Claiborne, he could have called him the biggest bust in Cowboys’ history. That’s a brutally honest view of a sixth overall pick who isn’t one of the top three corners on a defense that was the NFL’s worst last season.

If Claiborne is upset that he’s being replaced in the base defense by Orlando Scandrick, for the second straight season, he’s simply delusional. Sterling Moore, an undrafted player who was unemployed for several weeks last season after being cut by the Cowboys in late August, should be the Cowboys’ third corner based on merit.

SportsNation
Who is the worst first-round draft pick by the Cowboys over the last decade?

Morris Claiborne
Felix Jones
Bobby Carpenter
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That’s pretty pathetic for a player the Cowboys projected to be a perennial Pro Bowler.

The Cowboys keep trying to pump up Claiborne. They heaped praise on him during training camp until he got hurt for the third straight summer, going out of their way to massage an ego even more fragile than his body. Head coach Jason Garrett politely referred to Claiborne as a “developing player” last week when asked to assess the cornerback’s development relative to expectations when Dallas made the draft-night deal with the St. Louis Rams.

The reality is that Claiborne, whose game-sealing pick of an overthrown pass in Sunday's win over the Rams doesn't erase the fact that he got torched all day, appears to be regressing. ProFootballFocus.com’s grades ranked him 80th among cornerbacks as a rookie, 88th last season and 91st through the first three games this season.

There have been many Cowboys first-round picks who have been huge disappointments. Many fans begin that list with Bill Parcells’ hand-picked linebacker, Bobby Carpenter, an 18th overall pick. But the price has never been as high for a bust as it was with Claiborne, who cost the Cowboys picks that turned into solid defensive tackle Michael Brockers and Pro Bowl receiver Alshon Jeffery.

That makes Claiborne the biggest bust in Cowboys history. Handling this demotion by leaving the facility in a huff only adds to it.

That’s the painful truth, whether Claiborne can handle it or not.
 

Clay_Allison

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Debatable. I can see it both ways. Galloway cost us two first rounders, but his stats suffered with his post-aikman QBs.
True. Galloway did leave here and become productive again in Tampa. He wasn't the irredeemable dumpster fire that TRRW was.
 

townsend

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Claiborne will likely think he should have won multiple super bowls, and perhaps a defensive player of the year by the time his rich and productive delusional career is over.
 
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