Would LeBron James actually have been able to walk onto the Cowboys in 2011?

It sounds like it nearly happened.

Like many sports fans, LeBron James has literally dreamed of playing in the NFL.

Funny enough, as he recounted in a recent Uninterrupted video, those dreams usually don’t involve him getting onto the field.

Back in 2011, with the NBA mired in a lockout, James said he started trying to make his dreams come true: he started training for football, and his friend and business partner Maverick Carter said that James received a contract from Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones that’s now framed in James’ office. The whole subject came up after Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers thought James could be the greatest NFL player ever if he played.

Obviously, nothing happened when the NBA agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement. But could James have really walked on to that year’s Cowboys squad and done anything?

I’m going with a resounding “no.” The Cowboys that year were in pursuit of an NFC East title that came down to the final game of the season, and they had Jason Witten and Martellus Bennett on the depth chart at tight end along with Dez Bryant, Miles Austin and Laurent Robinson catching passes from Tony Romo.

I’m of course assuming he would have been a tight end.

As much as we all would have loved to see James getting into games in December, I couldn’t see a situation where the NBA megastar was even active. But you know what we would have gotten? Practice footage. Sooo much practice footage of James taking actual reps with professional NFL players. That beats the flag football footage we got back then that showed how dominant James could be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGPCU1Xsvvg

Like James, we can still dream about James proving his unlimited athleticism goes beyond basketball.

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