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Austin Murphy>INSIDE THE NFL
Dez Bryant is not just sorry. He is calling from his Bentley to let a reporter know that he is "super, super, super, super sorry" -- roughly one super for each hour that he is overdue for an interview and photo shoot that he agreed to a week earlier. The Cowboys' receiver is calling now to decant his contrition and to announce, at last, that he will be at the team facility within the half hour. Even before Bryant is finished apologizing, the stiffed sportswriter -- worn down and codependent from decades of dealing with star athletes -- is assuring him that it's no problem.
But it is a problem. That's the message from various figures in the Cowboys' complex, including the indispensable Marilyn Love, executive assistant to team owner Jerry Jones. Her phone calls to Bryant on this humid morning have ignited enough of a fire under his backside to roust him out of his house and into his car.
"I saw it in college all the time," says Derek Dooley, the ex-Tennessee Volunteers head man who is now Bryant's position coach in Dallas. When a chasm exists between a player's talent and his level of accountability, "sometimes there's a lot of enabling that goes on. The people around him say, He's so gifted, we'll cut him some slack, offer a shortcut."
Now entering his fourth NFL season, the 6' 2", 222-pound Bryant is about to blow up, in the good way, in large part because the Cowboys have trimmed way back on the slack that they're willing to cut him. Bryant -- whose 92 catches for 1,382 yards and 12 touchdowns in 2012 "barely scratched the surface" of his abilities, according to coach Jason Garrett -- is poised to realize his vast potential. While Bryant's play down the stretch last season constituted a two-month highlight reel, his best catch might have been a touchdown against the Giants in October that was erased upon further review (a finger touched down out-of-bounds), but which Babe Laufenberg, for one, can't forget. "He takes off from the middle of the end zone and makes this unbelievable grab," says the ex--Dallas quarterback and current Cowboys radio analyst. "The guy defies physics, like Dr. J."
Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl/news/20130828/dez-bryant-dallas-cowboys/#ixzz2dOL7XWHO
Dez Bryant is not just sorry. He is calling from his Bentley to let a reporter know that he is "super, super, super, super sorry" -- roughly one super for each hour that he is overdue for an interview and photo shoot that he agreed to a week earlier. The Cowboys' receiver is calling now to decant his contrition and to announce, at last, that he will be at the team facility within the half hour. Even before Bryant is finished apologizing, the stiffed sportswriter -- worn down and codependent from decades of dealing with star athletes -- is assuring him that it's no problem.
But it is a problem. That's the message from various figures in the Cowboys' complex, including the indispensable Marilyn Love, executive assistant to team owner Jerry Jones. Her phone calls to Bryant on this humid morning have ignited enough of a fire under his backside to roust him out of his house and into his car.
"I saw it in college all the time," says Derek Dooley, the ex-Tennessee Volunteers head man who is now Bryant's position coach in Dallas. When a chasm exists between a player's talent and his level of accountability, "sometimes there's a lot of enabling that goes on. The people around him say, He's so gifted, we'll cut him some slack, offer a shortcut."
Now entering his fourth NFL season, the 6' 2", 222-pound Bryant is about to blow up, in the good way, in large part because the Cowboys have trimmed way back on the slack that they're willing to cut him. Bryant -- whose 92 catches for 1,382 yards and 12 touchdowns in 2012 "barely scratched the surface" of his abilities, according to coach Jason Garrett -- is poised to realize his vast potential. While Bryant's play down the stretch last season constituted a two-month highlight reel, his best catch might have been a touchdown against the Giants in October that was erased upon further review (a finger touched down out-of-bounds), but which Babe Laufenberg, for one, can't forget. "He takes off from the middle of the end zone and makes this unbelievable grab," says the ex--Dallas quarterback and current Cowboys radio analyst. "The guy defies physics, like Dr. J."
Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nfl/news/20130828/dez-bryant-dallas-cowboys/#ixzz2dOL7XWHO
