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By Jon Machota
5h ago
Tony Pollard played 31 offensive snaps while lining up as the Cowboys’ starting running back against the Chicago Bears in Week 8. Since he carried 14 times for 131 yards and three touchdowns and caught his only target for another 16 yards, most want to see at least that much playing time, if not more, going forward.
Cowboys running backs coach Skip Peete doesn’t see it that way. Pollard has averaged 29.5 offensive snaps per game this season and that’s about where they’d like to keep him.
“I think that’s probably his max as far as total play count,” Peete said. “Because then the juice isn’t the same and he’s not as quick, not as fast. When he had that long run on that third-and-1, as soon as he got to the sideline, he said, ‘Coach, I’m done. I’m done for the game. Done. I got no more.’”
Peete was referring to Pollard’s 54-yard touchdown run that put the Cowboys up 49-29 with 10:35 left against the Bears. He was working as the lead back because Ezekiel Elliott was sidelined with a sprained right knee. Pollard’s 15 touches were three short of his career-high.
Elliott is expected to return this week as the Cowboys prepare to face the Green Bay Packers.
“Some guys are race cars, some guys are high-quality, expensive sedans,” Peete said. “Those sedans can go forever and for a long distance, at a very high rate. Where race cars go very fast and quick and then they run out of gas. I’ve always just felt that at that position you got to always have two guys that are quality backs that can help each other, bounce off each other. And it helps if their running styles are a little bit different.”
Peete said defensive players have told him that the contrasting style puts more stress on the defense because they get used to setting up and taking angles to tackle one back and then it’s different with the other.
Peete sees Elliott as a sledgehammer and Pollard as a sword.
“A sledgehammer is pounding and crushing,” he said, “and then the sword comes in and slices you up.”
Peete spoke to reporters last week at The Star. The Cowboys assistant coaches are made available to reporters twice each season. Once at training camp and then again during the bye week. It’s set up to where the offensive coaches go around the same time and then the defensive coaches. Each coach was available for about 5 to 7 minutes in small groups with a few talking at the same time. There’s basically enough time to get a question or two in with multiple coaches.
Here are some of the other highlights from that media availability.
Quarterbacks coach Doug Nussmeier
On how QB Dak Prescott has handled coming back from his fractured right thumb: “Going through what he went through, being out five weeks, to come back on a short week of preparation, trying to get back in the flow of playing, he continues to get better each and every day to me. It’s just getting back into the motion and getting the timing and the rhythm and everything. I think he’s still got a lot of great football, better football than he’s playing right now, ahead of him.”
On Prescott’s thumb injury: “Any time you take part of your body out of use for an extended period of time and then you go back to using it, for any of our guys to use it at the level they have to use it on a Sunday to be effective as a player, you’re talking fractions of seconds, they’re such highly-tuned, precision players that I think there’s going to be an adjustment.”
On Prescott’s interception before halftime against the Bears: “We want to be aggressive but we got to be smart. Obviously turning the ball over in a two-minute type situation is not what we’re looking to do. … You always want to keep an aggressive mindset, but you gotta know when to take your shots and when you have to say, ‘OK, I’m going to stay aggressive but I’m going to back off on this one a little bit and take a checkdown, take a completion. I’ll have an opportunity again now to go back at them.’”
Offensive line coach Joe Philbin
On how he thinks rookie LT Tyler Smith would handle moving back to left guard when Tyron Smith returns: “I haven’t really thought about it. Obviously, it’s common knowledge that he was getting a lot of reps at guard in OTAs and a lot in training camp. We’ll see what the future holds. We’ll kind of cross the bridge when it comes.”
On how Tyron Smith’s return will impact the offensive line’s continuity: “Coach McCarthy does a great job with what’s going to give the Dallas Cowboys the best chance to win football games. So I’m sure when that situation arises, Coach is going to do what’s in the best interest of the team. Certainly Tyron Smith’s track record of excellence speaks for itself. We’ll see whenever that day arises, we’ll cross that bridge. Hopefully, for his sake, you hate to see players get injured, you hope he gets healthy and can contribute to the team.”
Tight ends coach Lunda Wells
On what he wants to see from rookie TEs Jake Ferguson and Peyton Hendershot: “The consistency. That’s what we always talk about in our room, being consistent as the season goes on. We don’t have to have a knockout game early in the year and then dip down. We just want to continue to trend in the right direction so at the end of December, when it’s championship football, we got guys that go out and don’t just play, but play to win and play to the standard we need to play to get to where we want to go as a team.”
Wide receivers coach Robert Prince
On rookie WR Jalen Tolbert: “The thing with him that’s really starting to show up is he’s not just running the lines on the paper. He’s making the routes come to life. He’s doing a nice job in practice. He’s getting a chance to play. He didn’t get any targets this last game, but he did a good job of getting open. It’s good to see that.”
Defensive passing game coordinator/secondary coach Joe Whitt Jr.
On LB/DE Micah Parsons: “I told a bunch of friends last year, this is my 16th year in the league and this is the first guy that I know that if he was a safety, he could start on all 32 teams. If he was a linebacker, he’d start on all 32 teams. If he played defensive end, he’d start on all 32 teams. All three levels of the defense. You put him on offense, he’ll start at running back, tight end. Quarterback might be the only (position he can’t play). He’s so talented. There’s nothing he can’t do. It’s just fun to watch him develop and watch how (defensive coordinator Dan Quinn) uses him each week.”
Micah Parsons returns a fumble for a TD against the Bears. (Tim Heitman / USA Today)
Senior defensive assistant George Edwards
On Parsons: “I don’t treat him any different than anybody else in the meeting room. The expectation is going to stay the same. The standard is going to stay the same. I just hold him to that standard. You’re talking about a young man that is playing more positions than I’ve ever seen anybody (play) because he moves around so much.
“The biggest thing is just trying to keep everything categorized for him so he can compartmentalize different things within different packages. He’s done a good job of that and we look to continue as he’s growing. He’s just going to grow and mature with the more experience that he gets handling all of those jobs, which is tough. But he does a great job. He puts in the extra time.”
Defensive backs coach Al Harris
On CB Trevon Diggs: “He and I, we have a saying, ‘Outside of the building, F whatever anybody else says, good or bad.’ … The kid is still young, he’s still learning the position. He only has room to grow. … In my eyes, he’s actually playing better than he did last year. … His eye discipline is so much more improved. He’s doing such a good job overall in coverage.
“When his eyes are in the right spot, it’s virtually impossible to throw the ball down the field at him. If his eyes are in the right spot and you put the ball down the field, I’m putting my money on him to come down with it.”
Defensive line coach Aden Durde
On rookie DE Sam Williams: “He can be whatever he wants to be. The good thing for Sam and his development is the fact that he’s in a group with a lot of rushers, so there’s not too much pressure on him. He can get limited snaps, he can grow within those snaps, he can make some mistakes and he can make some really great plays. You know he’s going to make the splash plays because he has the physical ability to do that, but now you can see the game is slowing down for him. And he puts in so much work.”
