Training camp thread...

Some injured Cowboys' could be limited

July, 18, 2013

By Calvin Watkins | ESPNDallas.com


ARLINGTON, Texas -- When the Dallas Cowboys open training camp practices in Oxnard, Calif., on Sunday, several players could be slowed in their return from injuries.

Quarterback Tony Romo (back) has been cleared to practice, but defensive end DeMarcus Ware (shoulder), defensive tackle Jay Ratliff (sports hernia) guard Mackenzy Bernadeau(shoulder) and Danny Coale (knee) could be limited in the early portions of training camp practices.

Coach Jason Garrett, speaking at the annual coaches clinic, said the team's medical staff has a set plan for all players returning from injuries.

"We'll have to monitor those guys and a couple of guys and see how they are," Garrett said Thursday afternoon from Cowboys Stadium. "We'll do the conditioning test on day 1 of training camp and see where they are physically after that and make some decision. We have a plan for each of those guys going into it, based on what their injury has been and different start dates for some guys, different ways to work back into training camp and work back into football."

Outside of Romo's return, Ware's debut of camp is also anticipated. Ware said he expects to practice on Sunday.

"We’ll just see how he is," Garrett said of Ware. "He made great progress in the offseason. He was involved in a lot of the individual drills that we did throughout the OTAs and the minicamps and we just kept him out of the more competitive 11-on-11 situations. He's made great progress coming off the injuries from last year and he works very hard at it. We'll certainly be smart going forward and see how he is each and every day. He seems excited and he seems ready to go."

Ratliff slowed by injuries?

Shocker.

Texas Ace said:

Ratliff slowed by injuries?

Shocker.

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But...but...he's gonna be a beast this year!

Crutchmen!

Will Allen, Brandon Magee enter camp same way

July, 19, 2013

By Todd Archer | ESPNDallas.com


OXNARD, Calif. – Will Allen is entering his 10th season and the Cowboys are his third team.Brandon Magee is an undrafted rookie.

They will arrive in Oxnard, Calif., today not via the Cowboys’ charter flight but by car because they have been in southern California working out prior to the start of training camp. Despite their different resumes they have the same feelings of anticipation.

“You want to have that feeling and that’s what football is all about,” Allen said. “It’s about to be real. It’s about to happen. You get that little bit of anxiety and it’s exciting.”

Allen’s first camp was in 2004 with Tampa Bay. The Buccaneers trained in Orlando

“It was hot as crap,” Allen said. “I was a young rookie trying to figure it all out and it was fun and I learned a lot, but it’s all a blur right now. I remember being really hot.”

Allen and Magee don’t have to worry about that in Oxnard, where the high temperature for the next week is 70 degrees. Magee had been working out at Arizona State where temperatures he said topped out at 115 degrees.

“That’s a walk in the park, weather-wise,” Magee said of the Oxnard weather. “But I know practice is going to be a lot harder.”

Allen and Magee share the same agent, Blake Baratz, and the veteran has passed on some sage words to the rookie the way the veterans in Tampa Bay, like Derrick Brooks, Ronde Barber and Ryan Nece did for him in Orlando.

“Will has been a big influence one me,” Magee said. “He told me a little bit about what training camp is like but I didn’t want to know too much. During the OTAs and the mandatory mini-camp he was one me about practice, how you’re supposed to practice, how you’re not supposed to hit people, how to study the game and keep your body healthy. He’s been a big help to me.”

Allen, who signed a one-year deal with the Cowboys in the offseason as a free agent, will likely be with the first-team defense for the first practice next to Barry Church. Magee, who was guaranteed $70,000 as an undrafted free agent, will be fighting for a chance to make the team.

“It’s a great opportunity and it makes you a little bit more motivated and a little more determined,” Allen said. “I don’t get it distract me. I just want to stay focused day to day.”

Magee said he every day he carries with him the pain of not being drafted, but knows he will have to make his mark every day. Part of the reason he signed with the Cowboys was their track record with undrafted free agents like Tony Romo, Miles Austin, Barry Church andAlex Albright.

“Everybody knows it’s harder for undrafted guys to make the team than drafted guys, but the Cowboys make it pretty equal for both to make the team,” Magee said. “I’m just happy for the opportunity and when I get out there I can show maybe I can be the next Tony Romo in that group.”

Does anyone have one of those crazy fanatic masks? I was hoping to get a picture with Black Weiner when I'm in town.

If I was Webb and saw the DCC someone would have to pick me up off the floor from laughing so hard.

Cowboys training camp: Off we go to Oxnard



BOB STURM |

Published: Friday, July 19, 2013, 10:51am

The 2013 NFL season represents the 18th year since Super Bowl 30 for the Dallas Cowboys. To this point, 17 seasons have been played since they won their 5th Super Bowl, and 281 games have been played during that stretch (regular and postseason).

There have been some good times and some good teams, but given the unreasonably high bar that Cowboys' teams and eras of the past have set, the final results of each of those 17 seasons have left their vast fan-base with feelings of disappointment. They have become accustomed to better. It is not a matter of deserving anything, because that is not how sports work. But, if you would have told the millions of Cowboys fans on that glorious night in Tempe, Arizona, when Jerry Jones held a Lombardi Trophy that did not require Jimmy Johnson's direct assistance, that the next 17 years would include nothing but "break-even" football, it would likely not be believed.

But, here they are. Starting season 18 since their last Super Bowl and with those 281 games behind them, we look at the results to check that win total:

140-141.

To be fair, if you deduct the playoff games (2-7), the record shifts to 138-134 through 17 seasons. That, of course, comes out to an average record of 8.1 wins and 7.9 losses per season year after year.

Since 2006, the year Tony Romo became their "QB1", they have a 65-51 mark (64-48 regular season) which equates to a average record of 9.1 and 6.9, and does account for one of those 2 playoff wins since Super Bowl 30 (the other being the wildcard round win against the Vikings in 1996).

Jason Garrett took over as coach of the Cowboys at midseason of 2010. Since that time, he has coached the Cowboys in 40 games, compiling a record of 21-19. He has not been to the playoffs to this point in his coaching tenure, which stands as a large impediment to any progress he has made in solidifying a roster and building a program that might be heading in the right direction.

Results matter and the results for Jerry Jones, Tony Romo, and Jason Garrett have all been right around 8-8.

And so, with 2011 and 2012 both being 8-8 seasons, the Cowboys start another training camp with optimism in their words and a fresh start in their minds. They will talk about winning football and ideas on how this particular season will be different from the others. They will, Jerry, especially, even mention the Super Bowl as the final destination and goal and talk about a window being open and trying to keep it from closing.

These are the things we do as we go to training camp with the Cowboys year after year. And in 2013, where optimism has been beaten down by the teams that have come before them, you actually can sense a fan base that has morphed into numb and at times, hopeless about the present condition evolving into that of a perennial contender.

And, the more I look at this team, the more I do wonder if this will be one of those years where a team does play at a level that even surprises their own fan base. I think this 2013 version can be pretty good, but like its predecessors, the margin for error is not going to be very big.

Yes, they have some very good talent at most starting positions. Yes, they play in a division with teams that do not seem like impossible obstacles in their path. Yes, they do seem to have new scheme ideas and strategies that work on paper. And yes, they have a collection of veterans that are tired of 8-8.

But, of course, as we have seen in the past, injuries always hit and they don't try to be considerate of positions where you can afford the loss. Even with a reasonably manageable schedule, this team has always found it tough to navigate through long stretches without a stumble. New schemes are never as easy to figure out as they appear on paper during June and July. And when you are 8-8, you understand that 2 plays - last year a Dez Bryant finger tip and a Dan Bailey kick in Baltimore from being 10-6. Of course, as the wins at New York, versus Cleveland, and at Cincinnati showed us, they won some games by the skin of their teeth, too, and weren't miles from 6-10, either.

I absolutely look forward to ever year's trip to camp, but the experience of 15 Cowboys' camps in a row for me has taught me to measure bold claims and perfect optimism with a fair amount of realism and understanding that guys in these sports are wired a certain way to always look at things with the best case scenarios in mind. They know that bad things are ahead, but they have no choice but to push forward with a brave face in July and August. It is a new season. New results are in their grasp if they make the right decisions along the way.

Added cast members will now coordinate a new defensive look. Monte Kiffin and Rod Marinelli have more knowledge than any 1-2 defensive coaching combo could possibly provide. They will push this team to create turnovers and negative plays and become a disruptive and physical defense like their other stops in Tampa Bay and Chicago.

On offense, the discussion of play-calling and a more determined emphasis on being physical and running the ball behind a powerful offensive line will be hashed out plenty in the next few weeks. The Cowboys poured almost all of their major draft resources into plugging offensive holes. And, it is exciting to see what they have done as Travis Frederick, Gavin Escobar, Terrance Williams, and Joseph Randle all bring tons of ability and youth to the table that should make the offense run more smoothly and effectively.

Over the next few weeks, we will tackle as many salient topics and questions as possible. We will review 2012 with a microscope and try to sort through what applies to 2013. We begin another journey with this team as they try once again to work their way up that hill.

They have never been a bottom feeder (well, Dave Campo's era might have been), but they have also ceased to be a heavyweight over these last 17 seasons. They have just been stuck in the middle, without ever moving too far up or down the standings. Right in the mix for the final playoff spots until the end, but recently, just on the outside looking in.

It is an amazingly tough league. Thirty-two teams all hit camp with optimism about how they can figure out how to be one of the 12 teams that will play in the tournament in January. History tells us that each season, half of the playoff field changes to new teams.

Can the Cowboys be there in that group of new teams? Absolutely.

But, it will require them answering many of their questions with positive answers.

It all starts today, as they board their planes to California. 1st Practice is Sunday at 4 p.m. Pacific time.

From there, nobody knows what lies ahead. But, those of us who love the sport cannot wait to begin to find out.

Bryan Broaddus @BryanBroaddus

@Mat_Beezy Garrett made it seem like it was really day to day but these calf injuries for an offensive linemen are never easy to deal with.

27m

Bryan Broaddus @BryanBroaddus

@randywalker21 Garrett just said that Frederick will start out at center but will get work at guard when time is right.



33m

Nick Eatman @nickeatman

Garrett says livings (foot), Leary (calf) and Ladoucuer (calf) will be only three players limited when practice starts tomorrow

Retweeted by Dallas Cowboys



33m

Bryan Broaddus @BryanBroaddus

Sounds like Leary and Livings will be limited early with calf injuries that they suffered this past week.





34m

Nick Eatman @nickeatman

Garrett says livings (foot), Leary (calf) and Ladoucuer (calf) will be only three players limited when practice starts tomorrow

Leary has an opportunity here and I hope he seizes it rather than spend the summer in the tub.

So...to open camp both of our top left guards will not be practicing in full. Sounds like we get to use the excuse of a lack of continuity again. Woot!

Wasn't the media telling is that we are healthy going in to camp?

Jerry Jones begins 25th camp with Cowboys

July, 20, 2013


OXNARD, Calif. – This is Jerry Jones’ 25th training camp as owner and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys. For some his tenure might seem like forever, especially with the lack of Super Bowl success since the 1995 season, but for Jones it does not seem like it has been that long.

His first training camp in 1989 came at Cal Lutheran in Thousand Oaks, Calif., a ride down the 101 from where the team calls its summer home now, Oxnard.

At his first camp, “I had gotten there a couple of days a little behind the team and I walked out and smelled that grass and I thought, ‘This is the way it used to smell when I played at Arkansas,’ and that feeling out there and the smell of the equipment and everything that was involved and the aura and the anticipation, that hasn’t changed at all,” Jones said.

Now 71, Jones changed his mind and said the feeling of the opening of camp has enhanced in his mind.

“It’s like being on pins and needles waiting on this day to get here, to get to our camp going, to get our season going, see how we can take what we got and make it compete,” Jones said.

Tony Romo to have throws limited during camp

Posted by Curtis Crabtree on July 20, 2013, 4:44 PM EDT


Quarterback Tony Romo was significantly limited throughout offseason work for the Dallas Cowboys as he recovered from surgery to remove a cyst in his back.

Romo has been cleared to practice as the Cowboys report for the start of training camp on Saturday in Oxnard, Calif. However, the Cowboys intend to ease Romo back into full workouts and monitor his reps as camp gets underway.

According to Carlos Mendez of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Cowboys plan to manage the workload Romo sees during practices. Head coach Jason Garrett said Romo isn’t going to be limited to a specific number of throws but they will communicate with Romo to make sure he isn’t feeling fatigued and the quality of his throws aren’t falling off.

“One of the challenges for Tony, when you have a back injury, is it’s hard for you to actually to stay in the kind of shape you want to be in,” Garrett said. “…He looks great. He looks lean to me. We do have to monitor his throwing. I don’t think it’ll be significant.”

https://mtc.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/54706F7541970487238913859584_1abdff6f9df.3.1_nwksp3nvfPljC2Iz0EHZ.rxUX5_Zh8urt.MtuOxH1VZEiy7v9wBuk_juKeQNCbTo.mp4?versionId=hyLC0qIg_SUFBXDPQy7EwlM.icYjtuk_

Iamtdg said:

https://mtc.cdn.vine.co/r/videos/54706F7541970487238913859584_1abdff6f9df.3.1_nwksp3nvfPljC2Iz0EHZ.rxUX5_Zh8urt.MtuOxH1VZEiy7v9wBuk_juKeQNCbTo.mp4?versionId=hyLC0qIg_SUFBXDPQy7EwlM.icYjtuk_

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And we wonder why other team's fans hate us so fricking much.

boozeman said:

And we wonder why other team's fans hate us so fricking much.

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Not many on this board wonder why.