B Broaddus said it best, Cowboys not practicing in pads enough!

[theebs]

Great post. Too bad it will go unheeded because of what Jimmy did!!1!

You're dead on about the mental fatigue of the never ending routine being the problem rather than the physical fatigue. I don't see why more people don't get that.

I agree with you on Jerry, too. I get really, really nervous when he starts pulling out the "But in 1993 we had a preseason game on the moon, therefore travel doesn't hurt anything" logic.

yeah in 92 the team had irvin, stepnoski and novacek holding out and the team played a game in tokyo, then in camp a rookie back whos name I cant remember stole emmitts car etc....

that kind of stuff happened then too, but I dont think you can correlate any of that to today.

But we all know that is jerry. Luckily all that crap is over now. The team is waking up with their families today and hopefully a chip on their shoulder to show everyone that last night was not indicative of the type of guys they are.

 

[sonnyboy]

Can't say I've ever been more at a loss.

I don't know what the problem or solution is.

 

[theogt]

It's a different era. We don't have the 'run yourself into the ground mentality' anymore, which in some ways is a good thing. I'm an athletic trainer, and I've seen a marked shift in the overall mentality of training camps now. When you see guys dying of heat stroke, concussions on the rise, and the number of guys who get season ending injuries in camp, it changes your approach.

And like you said, different teams run their camps differently. Philly works a lot in pads, but I haven't seen them light anybody up so far, and they have some injuries. Dallas is very young in some areas, and a little long in the tooth in others. It's showing. The last two games, the effort from the younger guys has been better than the vets. Not surprised. Many of them are still trying to prove themselves, on top of having more energy.

Bottom line is, you wear your team out, they won't perform, whether it be now or during the season. And yes, players need days off, no matter what they're doing. Okay, going in shorts doesn't exactly drain you physically, but it's still a day where you have to go to work. We all need days off, to get away from work or school, give our brains and bodies a rest. Sitting in class as a student isn't physically demanding, yet if you did it seven days a week for five weeks straight, you'd be dying for a day off, especially if you knew you had another four to five months of this staring you in the face.

If you're looking for someone to blame, blame Jerry. He's the one taking his team all over the country trying to market them. He's the one scheduling consecutive two-a-days on weekends trying to sell more t-shirts. And at this point, I'll bet everyone is worn out, from the players to the coaches, to the trainers and managers.

I think it's a matter of quality over quantity. Did we really need 12 two-a-days? Or did we need fewer practices that were maybe a little longer and more focused or intense or physical? Were there any times during these practices where the Cowboys just got to have fun?

It seemed like a contradiction of sorts. Practice more, with the idea of getting better, but not go as hard. I assume that was to try to avoid injury and burnout. Didn't really seem to work. I just know this team wants really nothing to do with the preseason anymore. Hopefully, a couple of weeks in Dallas, in their homes and in their beds, and they'll get past it and turn it on in the regular season.

Excellent post.

 

[Mash]

I dont know.....Wade Sept record speaks for itself .....but now because of poor performance during preseason......we will here camp cupcake again.

Sure there is concern......every team has concerns....every team has them during preseason. We have witnessed teams dominate the preseason and fail during the regular season.....and we witness teams not win a single game during preseason and reach the SB during the regular season.

The team was flat last nite.....everyone got pushed around.....everyone....no one stood out....one team played to win....another showed up and played to get it over with IMHO.

Im concerned....there are some things that bother me and I hope we can fix them. My main concern is the lack of coaching on the OL. I think Houck is overpaid for the product he is putting on the field. Our running game relys on the delay handoff......last year that was our bread and butter play on running plays........thats it....IMHO.....short yardage...etc....just stinks.......The OL struggles to handle the simple stunts and blitzes.....thats coaching ......IMHO.......unless.....we have some really dumb OLineman......which I guess could be the case

Just my humble opinon.

 

[utrunner07]

2 weeks ago rumors were we were practicing too much too hard ::

 

[jimmy40]

Bryan Broaddus should stick to slamming RW, he was a genius then.

 

[theogt]

Bryan Broaddus should stick to slamming RW, he was a genius then.

He should stick to being a professional scout -- oh wait, no one will hire him.

 

[igtmfo]

It's a different era. We don't have the 'run yourself into the ground mentality' anymore, which in some ways is a good thing. I'm an athletic trainer, and I've seen a marked shift in the overall mentality of training camps now. When you see guys dying of heat stroke, concussions on the rise, and the number of guys who get season ending injuries in camp, it changes your approach.

And like you said, different teams run their camps differently. Philly works a lot in pads, but I haven't seen them light anybody up so far, and they have some injuries. Dallas is very young in some areas, and a little long in the tooth in others. It's showing. The last two games, the effort from the younger guys has been better than the vets. Not surprised. Many of them are still trying to prove themselves, on top of having more energy.

Bottom line is, you wear your team out, they won't perform, whether it be now or during the season. And yes, players need days off, no matter what they're doing. Okay, going in shorts doesn't exactly drain you physically, but it's still a day where you have to go to work. We all need days off, to get away from work or school, give our brains and bodies a rest. Sitting in class as a student isn't physically demanding, yet if you did it seven days a week for five weeks straight, you'd be dying for a day off, especially if you knew you had another four to five months of this staring you in the face.

If you're looking for someone to blame, blame Jerry. He's the one taking his team all over the country trying to market them. He's the one scheduling consecutive two-a-days on weekends trying to sell more t-shirts. And at this point, I'll bet everyone is worn out, from the players to the coaches, to the trainers and managers.

I think it's a matter of quality over quantity. Did we really need 12 two-a-days? Or did we need fewer practices that were maybe a little longer and more focused or intense or physical? Were there any times during these practices where the Cowboys just got to have fun?

It seemed like a contradiction of sorts. Practice more, with the idea of getting better, but not go as hard. I assume that was to try to avoid injury and burnout. Didn't really seem to work. I just know this team wants really nothing to do with the preseason anymore. Hopefully, a couple of weeks in Dallas, in their homes and in their beds, and they'll get past it and turn it on in the regular season.

Great post.

Don't the Texans just hold training camp in Houston? Sleep in their beds? Along with a lot of teams now?

I'd be interested in whether the Cowboys had more live practices than other teams this preseason.

And I thought the last month's practices were all about execution. It's the next two weeks that we are going to put in all the tricky stuff behind closed doors.

 

[Dhragon]

Kudos to the players and coaches for not yelling that the main reason the first stringers looked bad was because they used base packages while the Texans schemed and game-planned. They didn't use that as the reason for the whooping. They cite the need for better execution (which is true of course, they did need better execution).

But even if the Cowboys were executing on all cylinders, using base vs gameplan, the game would have looked ugly. That's why teams gameplan afterall.

Have just started reading CZ for today and was expecting to see the majority acting like chicken littles, but so far, most are far more calm than I thought. Of course, I've only read a couple threads so far, lol.

Cowboys should be fine once they actually TRY to win.

 

[rathalarge]

He should stick to being a professional scout -- oh wait, no one will hire him.

 

[Picksix]

Thanks for all the props guys.

 

[CATCH17]

Its preseason! Get off your soap box! Wade is 9-2 in September. You know......that's the first month of the REGULAR season! The games that ACTUALLY count! How do some of you deal with the adversities in life I will never know?

Our defense also came out of the gate with an inability to tackle last year too.

 

[pjtoadie]

Kudos to the players and coaches for not yelling that the main reason the first stringers looked bad was because they used base packages while the Texans schemed and game-planned. They didn't use that as the reason for the whooping. They cite the need for better execution (which is true of course, they did need better execution).

But even if the Cowboys were executing on all cylinders, using base vs gameplan, the game would have looked ugly. That's why teams gameplan afterall.

Have just started reading CZ for today and was expecting to see the majority acting like chicken littles, but so far, most are far more calm than I thought. Of course, I've only read a couple threads so far, lol.

Cowboys should be fine once they actually TRY to win.

Great point!!

 

[CowboyMike]

1. wade, your the one that didnt have players wear knee braces, and we lost columbo and kosier because of that
2. wade, your the one that had kosier at center practicing a position he has never played before, without a knee brace (something that bill parcells had players wear braces in all practices, but you didnt wade), get a clue wade

Colombo still wears his knee braces because of his previous knee injuries with Chicago. He kept wearing them after Parcells left.

Man of the players relieved that they didn't have to where the braces anymore because it made them more mobile. Especially Gurode, who said the braces scratched up his arms when he snapped the ball. And Kosier did not get injured while he was playing center, so why bring that up? To my recollection they were only trying him out at center during the minicamps and it hasn't happened at training camp.

Also, you're acting like Wade has not practiced the team in pads at all. From what I've seen, it's pads for one practice and no pads for the next. He alternates. Find me a team in the league that doesn't do the same thing.

 

[Randy White]

Todd Archer also said it on the ticket during the week,that the team only spent a little time on silent counts and didnt prepare for the environment that much..

I confirm this because I heard it myself. It was in the morning show and he, flat out, said that the Cowboys were going to get blown out, partly because the Texans were going to treat the game like it was a superbowl while the Cowboys weren't going to show much more than a vanilla gameplan. I understood that, which is why I didn't pay too much attention to this game. I had even forgotten that they were playing last night ( was concentrating on my fantasy draft all day long ) and missed the opening drive.

You could see the players were running on fumes. They were going through the motions. Oddly enough, for those of you who are fans of NatGeo channels, they look like the soldiers look when they're going through the initiation schools for specialized units. They were just trying to get to the next quarter.

They won't be making those mistakes during the season.

 

[Randy White]

i dont buy that, even nate newton said that when players complained that they were tired, nate laughed, said you guys dont really know what tired is.

I love Nate. My ex-offensive line coach ( R.I.P. coach Lawrence ) was his teammate at F.A.M.U. Having said that, Nate sometimes falls into the trap that all of us fall to when we get to a certain age. The trap of: " oh, if you think this is hard, you should have seen it back in my days "... He's not the only one either.

Don't want to diminish the grueling training camps that Jimmah Jenius ran, but let's be realistic about them too. The team back then was much younger, players and coaches weren't better informed and while they did practice under harsher circumstances, they had up to 90 or 100 players in camp, not the 80 limit they have right now. Believe you me, those 15 to 20 extra players do make a difference when it comes to drill time..

 

[Hoofbite]

i dont buy that, even nate newton said that when players complained that they were tired, nate laughed, said you guys dont really know what tired is.

I don't buy it either.

I think it was Babe who said it during the last preseason game that tiredness shouldn't be an issue because camp hasn't been that rough this year. Don't hold me to it being babe but it was said.

 

[CowboyMike]

And since when did Broaddus become the end all be all of Cowboys knowledge around here? Because DCF knows him personally? Bleh.

 

[cowboyjoe]

cowboyjoe, can you possibly provide a link to Broaddus exact comment(s)? There is a possibility that you are taking what he said out of context.

how about this dallaseast?
*Tuesday was the first day that the Cowboys had practiced in pads since last Wednesday. After two straight practices of hats and jerseys, it was nice to see them working in helmets and shoulder pads.

I always feel like this team gets more out of this dress than when they go without the pads. The half speed correction practices are necessary, but this team does a good job of working and protecting each other when they have the pads on.

When this team practices in hats and jerseys, it tends to look sloppy and unfocused. When you see this team practice in pads, your see the development of the scheme and the execution of the plays. To me, corrections are easier to make because you see the play being run how it was meant to be.
http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/cowboys/post/_/id/4671253/scouts-eye-oxnard-day-9

and here is where wade says team is tired, etc, sore legs, and wade admits it, but still doesnt give players a day off to rest their legs;

OXNARD, Calif. -- After two practices, considered walkthroughs, the Cowboys conducted a practice with helmets and shoulder pads on the back end of a two-a-day on Tuesday.

Coach Wade Phillips said his team was tired and that two two casual practices helped a little bit in terms of the players getting their legs back.

The Cowboys are one of just a few teams still in training camp, and Phillips continues to speak about his team being in camp mode.

"I still think our team is a little tired," Phillips said. "We had been really every game, but that’s part of getting ready for the season and will be going into [the Houston] game. It's a necessary evil and its necessary to get them tired and get them working through that."

During training camp, the Cowboys have not had any days off. However, selected veteran players missed the morning sessions of two-a-days in San Antonio. Before he injured his shoulder, veteran Keith Brooking, who was coming off minor knee surgery, would practice just once during a two-a-day period.

In San Antonio, the Cowboys practiced inside the Alamodome while it was 95 degrees outside. In Oxnard, the Cowboys are outside on grass with temps no higher than 85 degrees. Phillips said he's noticed a fresher team at times but understands the grind of camp can wear on players.

"I think we've gone through the grind part, physically coming back a little bit back that way," he said. "But mentally it is training camp and we got to maintan that mode and we have to work on things fundamentally."
http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/cowboys/post/_/id/4671266/the-cowboys-are-a-tired-team

 

[cowboyjoe]

And since when did Broaddus become the end all be all of Cowboys knowledge around here? Because DCF knows him personally? Bleh.

a proscout that has watched pro football teams play, and excel, knows what he is talking about, just like when randy white said the other day, pros that have played the game, or coached or scouted it, know way more than us fans, and know what they see;