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By Saad Yousuf 3h ago
Football is a unique sport in that, on almost every play, somebody literally falls down and has to get up. It’s what makes this quote from legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi so fitting: “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get back up.”
It’s a good mantra to carry in any walk of life because every person gets knocked down – if not literally, then at least proverbially. Beating the odds is what this time in the NFL calendar is about for many players. OTAs and mandatory minicamps are over, meaning what awaits is training camp and the preseason: an audition to decide who makes it to the real show.
Adversity shows up at different times and in different ways for players. For Jaylon Smith, it was a catastrophic injury. For La’el Collins, it was an accusation. For Dak Prescott, it was skepticism about whether he had the passing skills to make it. Of course, there are players like Ezekiel Elliott; highly recruited in high school, very successful in college and then the NFL. But they are the minority in an NFL locker room.
“Of course, there is doubt,” Jason Witten, who checked in at No. 6 in The Athletic’s rankings of the most impactful Cowboys of all time, said. “I think all players have doubt, but I always felt like I believed I could accomplish it. I was willing to make the sacrifices to put that work in.”
Even in his younger years, Witten was never regarded as fast. As his career progressed, so did the role of tight ends in the NFL. It was an evolving position that saw many tight ends basically being utilized as another wide receiver as opposed to the more traditional in-line guy. He also didn’t come into the league as a can’t miss prospect; Witten was a third-round pick in 2003. Many of his peers in that round reached anonymity in short order.
Witten, though, fell back on his determination and a word that seems to follow him around a lot: “grit.” He broke his jaw in his rookie year and missed just one game, the only one he’s ever missed in his NFL career. A few years later, he lost his helmet in the middle of a play after a hard hit against the Philadelphia Eagles; he proceeded to run for 30 more yards. That play encapsulates Witten’s approach.
Jeff Heath has had nowhere near the legendary career that Witten has, but he’s entering his seventh season in the NFL – all with the Cowboys – and competing for a starting spot at safety after cracking the 53-man roster in 2013. According to Statista, the average career for an NFL player is 3.3 years. The average career for defensive backs is even shorter, at less than three years, while the average NFL career for a player who makes the 53-man roster his rookie season six. Heath will have bested all the odds merely by taking the field for a seventh season.
“Going into training camp my rookie year, I think we had like eight safeties, and I knew they were probably going to keep four, maybe five,” Heath said. “I tried not to look at it that way, but obviously, that’s reality. You just take it one day at a time. It’s really all you can do. Don’t look at anything. Don’t even worry about the next day or the next game. You just try to do well when you’re out there.”
While Heath’s moment of doubt showed its face n an NFL training camp, Michael Gallup didn’t even expect to make it to big-time college football. He suffered an ankle injury at Butler Community College in 2015 and, all of a sudden, college offers started coming off of the table.
“I had to keep my mind off of thinking that ‘Nobody even saw me play this past year, who’s going to pick me up?” Gallup said. “You just got to keep doing little things, keep your mind off of stuff like that and definitely talk to people. If you just sit in your room and think about it, stuff can go wrong. I definitely had my mom in my ear, too, so I was good.”
It may be cliché, but Gallup sees some beauty in the difficult path he has traveled. 2015 stays fresh in his mind, so regardless of his status as a likely starting wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, the chip always stays on his shoulder.
While players like Witten, Heath and Gallup acknowledge the doubt and attack it head on, some players mentally condition themselves to allow self-confidence to trump any internal doubt that may creep in and then close their ears to any external doubt from outsiders. Perhaps no player on the Cowboys roster faced the uncertainty that Jaylon Smith did in 2016 after a devastating knee injury at Notre Dame that was viewed by some as potentially career-ending. When approached last week about how he handled himself during that time, Smith said he held firm to a long-held mantra, “Clear Eye View,” which began as personal motivation and came to mean so much to him that Smith has since grown it into a brand.
“Did you have any doubt, I know obviously your injury was—”
Smith: “No.”
“Not even a little doubt?”
Smith: “Couldn’t afford to, had too many people doubting me.”
“How did you get through that?”
Smith: “Clear Eye View.” Focused, vision, determined belief, earned dreams. That’s how I made it through, baby. “Clear Eye View” the entire way. Whether you play sports or not, everyone should have their own “Clear Eye View.” It’s kind of that path to glory, so I’m just a living example of it. It was never going to happen. I was never not going to play again.”
Simple enough. His quarterback, despite questions about his accuracy and his status as the Cowboys’ second fourth-round pick in 2016, has taken a similar approach.
“No. Never. Not a chance, not a chance,” Prescott said when asked if there was ever a time in his life if he doubted he would be at this point. “The work I’ve put in, everything I’ve done, the adversity that I faced in my life and been able to bounce back from it. I’m a positive attitude and optimistic guy and, yeah, those thoughts don’t creep in like that.”
When the team lands in Oxnard, California, more stories will be written and layers, added. Adversity never really stops; it simply evolves. An undrafted free agent like Mitch Hyatt faces the challenge that is most commonly thought of at this time of year – making the roster. Prescott was once in Hyatt’s shoes. He’s now graduated to proving he’s worth the mega-contract that’s soon coming his way. For Witten, it’s about proving he still has something left in the tank.
The end of training camp signals the first victory for each player: Making it on an NFL roster. From there, the pursuit begins to overcome doubters and lift the Lombardi Trophy.
By Saad Yousuf 3h ago
Football is a unique sport in that, on almost every play, somebody literally falls down and has to get up. It’s what makes this quote from legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi so fitting: “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get back up.”
It’s a good mantra to carry in any walk of life because every person gets knocked down – if not literally, then at least proverbially. Beating the odds is what this time in the NFL calendar is about for many players. OTAs and mandatory minicamps are over, meaning what awaits is training camp and the preseason: an audition to decide who makes it to the real show.
Adversity shows up at different times and in different ways for players. For Jaylon Smith, it was a catastrophic injury. For La’el Collins, it was an accusation. For Dak Prescott, it was skepticism about whether he had the passing skills to make it. Of course, there are players like Ezekiel Elliott; highly recruited in high school, very successful in college and then the NFL. But they are the minority in an NFL locker room.
“Of course, there is doubt,” Jason Witten, who checked in at No. 6 in The Athletic’s rankings of the most impactful Cowboys of all time, said. “I think all players have doubt, but I always felt like I believed I could accomplish it. I was willing to make the sacrifices to put that work in.”
Even in his younger years, Witten was never regarded as fast. As his career progressed, so did the role of tight ends in the NFL. It was an evolving position that saw many tight ends basically being utilized as another wide receiver as opposed to the more traditional in-line guy. He also didn’t come into the league as a can’t miss prospect; Witten was a third-round pick in 2003. Many of his peers in that round reached anonymity in short order.
Witten, though, fell back on his determination and a word that seems to follow him around a lot: “grit.” He broke his jaw in his rookie year and missed just one game, the only one he’s ever missed in his NFL career. A few years later, he lost his helmet in the middle of a play after a hard hit against the Philadelphia Eagles; he proceeded to run for 30 more yards. That play encapsulates Witten’s approach.
Jeff Heath has had nowhere near the legendary career that Witten has, but he’s entering his seventh season in the NFL – all with the Cowboys – and competing for a starting spot at safety after cracking the 53-man roster in 2013. According to Statista, the average career for an NFL player is 3.3 years. The average career for defensive backs is even shorter, at less than three years, while the average NFL career for a player who makes the 53-man roster his rookie season six. Heath will have bested all the odds merely by taking the field for a seventh season.
“Going into training camp my rookie year, I think we had like eight safeties, and I knew they were probably going to keep four, maybe five,” Heath said. “I tried not to look at it that way, but obviously, that’s reality. You just take it one day at a time. It’s really all you can do. Don’t look at anything. Don’t even worry about the next day or the next game. You just try to do well when you’re out there.”
While Heath’s moment of doubt showed its face n an NFL training camp, Michael Gallup didn’t even expect to make it to big-time college football. He suffered an ankle injury at Butler Community College in 2015 and, all of a sudden, college offers started coming off of the table.
“I had to keep my mind off of thinking that ‘Nobody even saw me play this past year, who’s going to pick me up?” Gallup said. “You just got to keep doing little things, keep your mind off of stuff like that and definitely talk to people. If you just sit in your room and think about it, stuff can go wrong. I definitely had my mom in my ear, too, so I was good.”
It may be cliché, but Gallup sees some beauty in the difficult path he has traveled. 2015 stays fresh in his mind, so regardless of his status as a likely starting wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys, the chip always stays on his shoulder.
While players like Witten, Heath and Gallup acknowledge the doubt and attack it head on, some players mentally condition themselves to allow self-confidence to trump any internal doubt that may creep in and then close their ears to any external doubt from outsiders. Perhaps no player on the Cowboys roster faced the uncertainty that Jaylon Smith did in 2016 after a devastating knee injury at Notre Dame that was viewed by some as potentially career-ending. When approached last week about how he handled himself during that time, Smith said he held firm to a long-held mantra, “Clear Eye View,” which began as personal motivation and came to mean so much to him that Smith has since grown it into a brand.
“Did you have any doubt, I know obviously your injury was—”
Smith: “No.”
“Not even a little doubt?”
Smith: “Couldn’t afford to, had too many people doubting me.”
“How did you get through that?”
Smith: “Clear Eye View.” Focused, vision, determined belief, earned dreams. That’s how I made it through, baby. “Clear Eye View” the entire way. Whether you play sports or not, everyone should have their own “Clear Eye View.” It’s kind of that path to glory, so I’m just a living example of it. It was never going to happen. I was never not going to play again.”
Simple enough. His quarterback, despite questions about his accuracy and his status as the Cowboys’ second fourth-round pick in 2016, has taken a similar approach.
“No. Never. Not a chance, not a chance,” Prescott said when asked if there was ever a time in his life if he doubted he would be at this point. “The work I’ve put in, everything I’ve done, the adversity that I faced in my life and been able to bounce back from it. I’m a positive attitude and optimistic guy and, yeah, those thoughts don’t creep in like that.”
When the team lands in Oxnard, California, more stories will be written and layers, added. Adversity never really stops; it simply evolves. An undrafted free agent like Mitch Hyatt faces the challenge that is most commonly thought of at this time of year – making the roster. Prescott was once in Hyatt’s shoes. He’s now graduated to proving he’s worth the mega-contract that’s soon coming his way. For Witten, it’s about proving he still has something left in the tank.
The end of training camp signals the first victory for each player: Making it on an NFL roster. From there, the pursuit begins to overcome doubters and lift the Lombardi Trophy.
