Say, say, say… Super Bowl Week means lots of talk leading up to the big game. And even though they’re not playing on Sunday, the Cowboys have been a hot topic among the media in Miami.
Jason Witten says he still wants to play, even if it’s not in Dallas. Dak Prescott will be saying many of the same things in the huddle in 2020. One of this year’s Super Bowl quarterbacks had great things to say about Tony Romo back when he entered the league. Jamal Adams says he’s planning on staying with the Jets. The Cowboys’ new secondary coach says he wants “ballhawks.” And an unlikely supporter is the latest to say that Drew Pearson’s exclusion from Canton is “a shame.”
Here’s what they all had to say, in this edition of News and Notes.
The 37-year-old tight end looked to many fans as if he had lost more than a few steps last season, but Jason Witten may not be quite ready to hang up his cleats and retire a second time. In fact, he sounds like someone gearing up for yet another season in pursuit of a Super Bowl… but will it be as a Dallas Cowboy?
“We’ll see how it plays out, but yeah, I’m putting myself in position to go play and evaluating what that looks like,” Witten is quoted as saying. “I hope so [it’s with the Cowboys]. But I realize I’m a free agent, too, in March. Any time a new staff comes together, I’ve played a long time, so I realize that may mean somewhere else, too. That’s just part of the business. I’ll continue to communicate and see where it unfolds.”
The future Hall of Famer says he’s had a good visit with new Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy and has been “in constant communication” with Jerry and Stephen Jones in the Dallas front office. But Witten’s longstanding relationship with new Giants offensive coordinator Jason Garrett bears monitoring and has already fueled speculation of a possible move to New York.
–TB
With so many changes on tap for 2020, Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott is relieved that one thing that will reportedly stay the same is the vocabulary he uses when calling plays in the huddle.
“It’s huge,” Prescott told Jori Epstein in Miami. “That’s big. I mean, that’s one of the biggest things when you talk about a quarterback, when you talk about leading an offense. Because if the terminology stays the same, that lessens that learning curve, that gap of, ‘I’ve got to learn that before I can teach it.’ Well, now I know that, so I can go straight to teaching.”
Click the link for more of what Prescott said, including his thoughts on what his teammates think of all the talk regrading his contract status with the team.
–TB
Could Dallas strike gold with the 17th pick in the upcoming draft? It’s happened before. Of the four previous times the club has made the selection in that spot, two of the players chosen have gone on to find themselves enshrined in Canton. Not a bad ratio.
Granted, Emmitt Smith and Mel Renfro leave pretty big shoes for an incoming rookie to fill. But the other two 17th-overall picks in club history were no slouches, either, as team staff writer Nick Eatman points out.
–TB
No self-respecting Cowboys fan is rooting for the 49ers in Super Bowl LIV. But maybe you’re looking for extra incentive to be an honorary Chiefs fan for the day, like WFAA’s Mark Lane was.
In the 2017 Dallas Morning News piece Lane links to, quarterback Patrick Mahomes detailed his Cowboys fandom as a youngster growing up in Texas. Not yet selected by Kansas City at the time of the article, Mahomes was flattered by pre-draft comparisons likening him to Cowboys gunslinger Tony Romo.
“He wasn’t scared to pull the trigger,” Mahomes then said of the just-retired Romo on the Fox Sports 1 show Undisputed. “He wasn’t scared to make any throw on the football field. So just to get compared to him is awesome.”
–TB
Bob Sturm kicks off his NFL draft work by taking a look at the position the Cowboys have ignored perhaps more than any other as of late: safety. In 2019, Dallas found themselves in the enviable position of being able to choose from Juan Thornhill, Nasir Adderley, and Taylor Rapp. They chose none of those players. Perhaps the new coaching staff has a different philosophy?
Sturm looks into five different safeties that will likely be gone by Day 2 of the draft. The head of the class is Clemson linebacker Isaiah Simmons, who lined up everywhere and, prior to his final college season, played safety.
–TT
The sequel to Cowboy Nation’s favorite fantasy tale from last season may be getting the plug pulled while still in preproduction. After a long and public courtship that ultimately went nowhere in 2019, Dallas and Jets safety Jamal Adams may be on the outs once and for all.
Adams has taken to Twitter to reveal that he and the Jets have had “small discussions” about an extension that would keep him with Gang Green. The All-Pro safety went on to say that he “fully expect[s] to be extended this offseason” and that he wants to remain in New York.
Of course, a lot can happen between “small discussions” and actually spilling ink on a Jets contract, so drama-loving Cowboys fans may choose to keep their popcorn at the ready and hoping for a plot twist.
–TB
The Cowboys ranked last in the league in interceptions last season. That’s going to change, if new secondary coach Maurice Linguist has anything to say about it. The Texas A&M hire plans to spend 2020 working mainly with the Dallas safeties, while another new staffer, former Green Bay Packer Al Harris (who had 21 picks over his NFL career), will focus on the team’s cornerbacks.
Linguist, in a video interview posted on the Cowboys’ website, says he wants “ballhawks” at the safety position. In a single answer about what he’s looking for, the 35-year-old Dallas native also used words like “attacking,” “disruptive,” and “aggressive.” All are phrases that may be unfamiliar to Cowboys fans when it comes to discussions of their defensive backs’ recent play.
–TB
Defensive end Randy Gregory remains on indefinite suspension after his latest violation of the league’s substance abuse policy in February 2019. In April, the Cowboys extended the former second-round-pick’s contract through the 2020 season- mainly because they believe in his football potential, but also partly because they know the tide is turning when it comes to how society and the law view marijuana usage.
Reid Hanson lays out a theory- also citing ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio- that the league will perhaps have to change its view on the subject as well. The catalyst may well be the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas. Nevada state law prohibits companies from refusing to hire an employee based on a failed drug test. That law appears to now apply to the Raiders… and could eventually force the league to allow the other 31 teams to follow suit.
With the CBA currently being negotiated and reports concessions will be made in the testing and discipline areas (in exchange for a 17th game), things may be moving on multiple fronts that will allow NFL players to exist without marijuana testing or punishments.
–TB
Joe Theismann is about the last guy one would expect to heap praise on a member of the Dallas Cowboys. But the Redskins legend said this week that he considers it “a shame Drew Pearson’s not in the Hall of Fame.”
That’s saying something, considering the Cowboys wideout torched Washington for 1,312 yards and seven touchdowns over his 21 career meetings with the Redskins. Most of those games featured Theismann at the helm throughout the mid- to late-1970s and early ’80s.
“He’s the only member of the All-Decade team that’s not in the Hall of Fame, which really is a travesty, ” Theismann continued. “It makes you look at the Hall of Fame and start to wonder why. Why and how can something like that happen?”
But Theismann’s support of Pearson runs deeper than even their storied NFL rivalry. Many fans may not realize that the two were actually high school teammates.
–TB
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