Expect Cowboys wide receivers coach Robert Prince to be a central character in one of Sunday Night Football‘s hyped-up Week 1 subplots come gametime, even though the other key figure in the story now claims the chapter is closed.
Back in the spring, the 58-year-old assistant, who joined the Dallas staff prior to the 2022 season, found himself in a bit of a brouhaha with wide receiver prospect Jalin Hyatt, who now plays for the Giants.
During Tennessee’s pro day, an NFL Films camera crew captured a brief exchange between Prince and Hyatt that quickly went viral after it was featured in promos for the series Hey Rookie, Welcome to the NFL.
During the pre-Draft process, #Cowboys WRs coach doubted Jalin Hyatt's ability to run routes, Hyatt called him out on it right away.
Fast forward to today, Hyatt was drafted by the #Giants and gets to beat the Dallas coaches who doubted him twice a yearpic.twitter.com/grRK00HgNf
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) May 1, 2023
There are two ways to interpret the conversation. To the Giants faithful and those looking for drama, Prince is unabashedly pigeonholing the Volunteers draft prospect as nothing more than an undisciplined receiver who is fast and nothing more. Hyatt himself certainly seems to take Prince’s comments as a personal slight.
The flip side would paint Prince, who has coached football at the college and pro levels for over three decades, as merely trying to coax maximum effort out of the young man, urging him to take his game to another level with the NFL’s top scouts watching.
As soon as New York selected Hyatt with their third-round pick, though, the exchange became a juicy new bit of bulletin-board material for the longstanding Cowboys-Giants rivalry, the 123rd edition of which will play out Sunday night.
Asked about it recently by Dan Duggan of The Athletic, though, Hyatt seemed to downplay any sort of ongoing beef with the Cowboys assistant, calling him a “good dude, great coach.”
[affiliatewidget_smgtolocal]
“It was a competitive pro day,” Hyatt went on to explain. “We were both talking back and forth. That’s just how it sometimes is with football. He wanted me to do the best, and I respect him for that. There was obviously some stuff we didn’t see eye-to-eye on, but it is what it is. He has his opinions, I have my opinions, and at the same time, I’m trying to work to be the best player I can be. Whatever tips and things he had for me, I’m going to make sure I observe them. There’s no hard feelings. He’s obviously been in the league for a while, so I have a lot of respect for him.”
But a promising rookie with a chip on his shoulder who’s making his NFL debut and specifically looking to show up a coach on the opposite sideline in one of the sport’s premier rivalries is made-for-primetime intrigue. So plan on the NBC crew milking the Hyatt-Prince storyline for every ounce of contentious drama they can get.
Of course, Cowboys cornerbacks Trevon Diggs, Stephon Gilmore, and DaRon Bland may have something to say about how much chirping back at Prince the rookie actually gets to do.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3]
[mm-video type=video id=01h9hqyxggh3vx50vet8 playlist_id=01eqbwens7sctqdrqg player_id=none image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01h9hqyxggh3vx50vet8/01h9hqyxggh3vx50vet8-9a50e38e00a4af2f51c9714d053062b0.jpg]
[lawrence-newsletter]