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Pet cats have been a part of BTB ever since Bill Parcells originally introduced the term to Dallas. How good were your pet cat picks this year?
Shortly after the draft, in what has become an annual tradition here on Blogging The Boys, we ask the front-page writers and BTB members to commit to their pet cats for the season.
The "Pet Cat" is a Parcells-ism, a term Bill Parcells popularized in Dallas when he was the head coach for the Cowboys. The term initially referred to a prospect that a coach, scout or owner had taken a particular liking to, often based on little more than a whim, and that they would then try to draft, regardless of what the scouting consensus was.
Among Cowboys fans, the term usually refers to a bubble player commonly found at the bottom of the roster. Some people pick pet cats that are late-round draft picks; that is usually frowned upon as even mid- to late-round draft picks face good odds of making the roster. The purest pet cats are down-roster pet cats, usually undrafted free agents or even street free agents, and for those pet cats to simply make the practice squad is often considered a great success.
But there comes a time when all the pet cat-ism in the world can't help a player, and that's during final roster cuts. Over the last two days the Cowboys finalized (sort of) their 53-man roster and (per Sunday afternoon) signed the following 10 players to their practice squad:
G Nate Theaker, OT Dan Skipper, DT Lewis Neal, DT Richard Ash, WR Lance Lenoir, WR Brian Brown, TE Blake Jarwin, OT Kadeem Edwards, S Jameill Showers, CB Marquez White.
Your pet cat either made it or didn't make it and it is now time for The Great Pet Cat Reckoning.
We'll start off with a look at which pet cats the BTB writers picked this year, and how that worked out for the pet cats involved:
- Tom Ryle: Cooper Rush - 53-man roster
- Dave Halprin: Noah Brown - 53-man roster
- Michael Sisemore: Xavier Woods - 53-man roster
- Joseph.Hatz: Lewis Neal - practice squad
- Danny Phantom: Jahad Thomas - cut
- Cole Patterson: Jahad Thomas - cut
- VAfan: Jordan Carrell - cut
- Dawn Macelli: Jordan Carrell - cut
- One Cool Customer: Joe Jones - cut
That's a frightening loss of pet cats from the writers here at BTB. When we published our pet cats in mid May, many BTB readers submitted their pet cats in the comments thread. A quick scan of the comments shows the following players as pet cat favorites among the BTB commenters at that time (excluding a few stray votes for veteran players or high draft picks):
Votes
Players
13
Joey Ivie
11
Noah Brown
8
Xavier Woods, Dan Skipper
5
Blake Jarwin, Jahad Thomas
4
Cooper Rush, Rico Gathers, John Lotulelei
2
Marquez White, Nate Theaker, Jordan Carrell, Joe Jones
1
Jameill Showers, Lewis Neal, Sam Irwin-Hill, Andy Jones, Austin Appleby, Duke Thomas, Lucas Wacha, Kennan Gilchrist
All of which goes to show that picking pet cats is not an exact science. Some pet cats left the Cowboys early, some didn't make the roster over the weekend, some wouldn't strictly qualify as pets cats anyway, and some ended up making the team.
Tell us about your pet cat. Who did you pick at the time?
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