Fleming: Jason Witten's title quest transcends Dallas

Plankton

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http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...want-great-player-win-super-bowl-nfl-playoffs

The last thing
every Dallas Cowboys player sees before stepping onto the practice field is a giant portrait of Jason Witten. It's a vividly enhanced, 40-foot snapshot of the 10-time Pro Bowl tight end as he rumbles 53 yards through the heart of the Philadelphia Eagles' defense, his eyes on the end zone, a trickle of blood leaking from his right nostril, his helmet nowhere to be found.

At first glance, the massive 2007 photograph that celebrates Witten's iconic and breathtakingly violent play, one that left NBC TV analyst John Madden practically shivering with delight, appears to be just one more garish artifact inside The Star, the Cowboys' new 91-acre, $1.5 billion training facility. Visitors here enter through a grand atrium and stroll across an endless field of white Italian marble toward an outdoor practice field that doubles as Jerry Jones' private helipad. Every available inch of wall space seems to have been commandeered for the gaudy glorification of America's Team.

But the more you study Witten's impact on this franchise over the past 14 seasons, and especially his role in leading the 2016 Cowboys to the top seed in the NFC playoffs -- with rookie Dak Prescott at quarterback instead of Witten's best friend, Tony Romo -- the more you understand how the larger-than-life portrait of the future Hall of Famer might just end up being perfectly to scale.

"If you could capture how you wanted to play this game and what your legacy would be in one photo, then, for me, that picture is it," says Witten, 34, the Cowboys' all-time leader in starts (213 in 223 games played) and receptions (1,089) and just the second tight end in NFL history with 1,000 catches and 10,000 yards receiving. "But I still wake up every day thinking what it would be like to hand the Lombardi trophy to Jerry Jones. And while I know, certainly, there have been a lot of great players who didn't win the Super Bowl, I don't want to be one of them."
 

perrykemp

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I give zero thought about this being about getting Witten his ring.

Team.
 
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