COWBOYS - Rookie Mini Camp

Posted by Taz

By now, I bet most of you Cowboys fans who have been starving for football news in the start of football's "dead zone" have been hearing a bit about rookie mini camp. Because I am football starved as well, I've been reading 15 different journalists write the same 3 articles about a couple days of practice between rookies and last year's practice squad.

So what do we know from minicamp? Absolutley nothing.

How can we know anything after one minicamp? First of all, these are rookies going up against other rookies. I'm not too impressed that they can beat up on other rookies. I'll be more impressed if they can block the Giants' boatload of DEs or cover Washington's plethora of #2 receivers. Second, in two weeks, they went from college students to being thrown into a NFL minicamp, in which they were given a ton of new information and forced to play against competition equal or better to them, (somthing they probably did not experience too much of in college). So, there may be a bit of an adjustment period, in which they look like utter morons.

(On a random aside, I really hate when every year, college football mediots take that year's "Greatest College Football Team Ever" and say that they could beat the worst team in the NFL. How stupid is that, considering that few players from these college teams go to the NFL and become productive players? And of those college players who will go to the NFL, they still are undeveloped college players at this point. Yes, LSU/USC/Oklahoma can run it up against Northcentral Rhode Island State PolyTech, but how woud they fair against the Miami Dolphins, whose practice squad players are probably better than 95% of those on that college team?)

Ok, back to rookie camp. The problem here is that we all want information if our draft picks are busts and if "undrafted WR we think got shafted in the draft will make the team so we spend the season bitching on message boards about how we think he should start over Patrick Crayton" will actually live up to his potential.

But we don't know that information. No one does. We won't know until the end of training camp, if not later in the season. Which sucks because now we are going hear about the Felix Jones v. Rashard Mendenhall debate until we see both of them play in real games (and then still probably hear about it some more). Or about how undrafted Danny Amendola is going to be the next Wes Welker (or other productive NFL player). Just like Sam Hurd before him, and Patrick Crayton before him. And Randal Williams? Remember how we all loved him because how he was so quick and had so much potential? Remember when the Eagles decided to do an onside kick to start the game, he took it back for a TD? Stupid Eagles. Remember how he had one reception as a Cowboy? Remember Woody Danzler? He also had a memorable return, and yet is in the Arena League at this moment. You get the point.

Go look on a Cowboys message board and you will see a ton of man love for Amendola. Never mind that the deck is stacked against him because the Cowboys are returning their top 4 receivers from last year, there is a possibility that Glenn will come back (I don't beleive it myself), and the coaches want to see what Stanback can do. There is also the fact that Texas Tech receivers usually are labled as system receivers and do not make it in the leauge (Welker is the exception). I love it when 7th rounders and undrafted rookies make it onto a roster. But you can't expect it. We all had man love for these guys listed above, and so far, only Patrick Crayton has shown that he will be a player in the NFL. There is a reason these players were undrafted. While I would like to see these people make it, there is a good chance it does not happen.

Unfortunetly, it will be three months of speculation before we can start knowing.

And this is why I hate this summer (in addition to the fact that I have to spend the next two months relearning all of law school so I can pass the bar and not be fired from the job I recently stumbled into). So unfortunetly, we have to have patience.