Free practicing at...RG

[Idgit]

what makes all of you so confident in leary ? the guy has a lifetime knee injury. I havent been impressed he was starting by default ( livings, berne injured/ suck , arkin sucked)

I've been quite impressed with Leary what little we've seen in the preseason so far. What problems have you seen with his game?

There's no indication of the degenerative knee problem affecting his game. It was only discovered coincidentally. At some point, it may cut his career short, but as of now, it's not a factor with his play. He's not starting by default, you just don't like the names of the other guys playing OG on the roster. But the team's been excited about Leary going back to last season when they activated him to protect his spot on the roster.

Everybody complains about this team not developing OL. They should just accept and be happy when we do instead of looking for reasons to not like the new players before they even have a chance to play well for the team. If the coaches and the players say he's the real deal, there's a good chance he's the real deal.

 

[jobberone]

And the beat goes on.....and the beat goes on ***Sonny and Cher-1967***

 

[CyberB0b]

So we are confident in this line? Keep in mind, this is our BEST case scenario.

LT: Tyron Smith - Obviously, has potential, but hasn't lived up to his draft position. This is going to be a big year for him, one way or another.
LG: Leary - Injured guy who has never played a real NFL game.
C: Freddy - Guy who has never started a real NFL game. The guy is super intelligent and seems to play well, so I don't think he will be a problem.
RG: Berny - Career backup who has been injured 2 preseasons in a row. This guy is so good, they were trying to pull a 36 year old man off the couch to replace him.
RT: Free- One of the worst RT's in the league last year. Took a huge paycut because he was terrible.

Granted, the bar was set pretty low last year. If Leary can't go, we have Livings coming off a knee injury to replace him. Make no mistake about it, the line situation is pretty bleak. We need the best case scenario to work out in order to have a chance.

 

[The Quest for Six]

Cowboys philosophy, plug square peg in round hole and hope it works... In a game where your starting five should be in place and getting work together, Dallas is STILL trying to figure out what if, what about, how about this and that a long the offensive line.....and people wonder why Dallas is 6-10, 8-8, and 8-8 every year...

 

[Teague31]

It's one thing to work on a contingency plan. It's quite another for the team to wake up two weeks before the opener and suddenly realize their best guard is a tackle who has never played the position in his life.

 

[jobberone]

[qdon't see this as beinge="Teague31, post: 5150188, member: 2033"]It's one thing to work on a contingency plan. It's quite another for the to wake up two weeks before the opener and suddenly realize their best guard is a tackle who has never played the position in his life.[/quote]

I don't understand the angst. It's not as if we weren't rebuilding the OL. Not to mention the injuries to work around.

 

[erod]

Hearing now that Free will, in fact, play guard against the Bengals.

They want their best five starting, and if Parnell is one of their best five, then this may be what we see against the Giants, too.

Smith-Leary-Frederick-Free-Parnell

There's still time for a trade or a Brian Waters signing. Dallas wants Waters, he wants to play, they need to get it done.

Obviously, the coaches have very little confidence in Bernadeau or Arkin.

 

[cowboys2233]

It's one thing to work on a contingency plan. It's quite another for the team to wake up two weeks before the opener and suddenly realize their best guard is a tackle who has never played the position in his life.

No, remember what some posters have said. This is for the best. LOL.

 

[Idgit]

No, remember what some posters have said. This is for the best. LOL.

I think I missed the part where it's a negative in some way. Is it just that we're still upset that Bernadeau is healthy and our best option at RG again this season?

 

[cowboys2233]

I think I missed the part where it's a negative in some way. Is it just that we're still upset that Bernadeau is healthy and our best option at RG again this season?

You don't see the negative in switching your RT to RG at the 11th hour and calling this your starting O-line? Funny, yesterday I heard that they were just preparing for "contingencies" when they moved Free to RG, you know, just in case of an emergency? Now it seems like they have hopes that this will be a permanent move for Free. Nothing like throwing a guy into a totally new position a week and a half before the real games begin and call him your starter, huh? I guess I'm not sure why some folks still view this as anything other than an obvious sign that we still have no idea what we're rolling out there on game day?

 

[BlindFaith]

You don't see the negative in switching your RT to RG at the 11th hour and calling this your starting O-line? Funny, yesterday I heard that they were just preparing for "contingencies" when they moved Free to RG, you know, just in case of an emergency? Now it seems like they have hopes that this will be a permanent move for Free. Nothing like throwing a guy into a totally new position a week and a half before the real games begin and call him your starter, huh? I guess I'm not sure why some folks still view this as anything other than an obvious sign that we still have no idea what we're rolling out there on game day?

I don't think the hope is that this will be permanent. Just until Leary is back. And he may be back by the Giants game. But they can only play NOW with the guys who are dressed. In their eyes Parnell is better than Arkin. So they moved Free to guard. Its about getting the best 5 out there.

And "panic" mode has stemmed from Livings not living up to his end of the bargain. Injury aside. But who knows, maybe he does still want to play and comes back healthy. He then makes a nice backup. If not, I think you'll see us picking up someone after the final cuts are made.

 

[dogberry]

My neurons remember the offensive line experiment three days ago as an attempt either to determine our seven man active game day offensive line group (is there a single German word for that) or to decide if an offensive line of our five best, healthy players will work.

 

[cowboys2233]

I don't think the hope is that this will be permanent. Just until Leary is back. And he may be back by the Giants game. But they can only play NOW with the guys who are dressed. In their eyes Parnell is better than Arkin. So they moved Free to guard. Its about getting the best 5 out there.

And "panic" mode has stemmed from Livings not living up to his end of the bargain. Injury aside. But who knows, maybe he does still want to play and comes back healthy. He then makes a nice backup. If not, I think you'll see us picking up someone after the final cuts are made.

Agreed. And when Parnell at RT and throwing Free in at RG is your best option, that is incredibly telling. Yes, I agree, getting Leary back makes this line much better, but you see how everything just falls apart with even one injury. There are no two ways to slice it, we are desperately lacking in any kind of talented depth on our O-line whatsoever. And when someone goes down, heaven forbid it's Smith or Frederick, we will see the exact same thing that we saw last year. No time for Romo, no hope of a running game.

 

[BlindFaith]

Agreed. And when Parnell at RT and throwing Free in at RG is your best option, that is incredibly telling. Yes, I agree, getting Leary back makes this line much better, but you see how everything just falls apart with even one injury. There are no two ways to slice it, we are desperately lacking in any kind of talented depth on our O-line whatsoever. And when someone goes down, heaven forbid it's Smith or Frederick, we will see the exact same thing that we saw last year. No time for Romo, no hope of a running game.

I wouldn't say things are falling apart just because we move Free to guard. This happens in the NFL. Look at the Giants shuffling their line around. I'm sure other teams are doing it as well, but they're not the Cowboys so it doesn't make the ESPN ticker.

If Fee can play Left/Right tackle in the NFL, which by all accounts he has really stepped things up this year, then he can play guard. Is Parnell ready to play tackle? Thats the real question.

Costa is a really nice backup to center. We're fine there.
With Livings going down and Arkin a mystery, we have a need there. That's why we were kicking the tires on Moore and Waters.
Parnell is a good backup at tackle. Maybe Bell or Weems squeeze into the mix as well.

So backup guard is something we'll be looking for in the next couple of weeks for sure.

 

[Zimmy Lives]

I wouldn't say things are falling apart just because we move Free to guard. This happens in the NFL. Look at the Giants shuffling their line around. I'm sure other teams are doing it as well, but they're not the Cowboys so it doesn't make the ESPN ticker.

If Fee can play Left/Right tackle in the NFL, which by all accounts he has really stepped things up this year, then he can play guard. Is Parnell ready to play tackle? Thats the real question.

Costa is a really nice backup to center. We're fine there.
With Livings going down and Arkin a mystery, we have a need there. That's why we were kicking the tires on Moore and Waters.
Parnell is a good backup at tackle. Maybe Bell or Weems squeeze into the mix as well.

So backup guard is something we'll be looking for in the next couple of weeks for sure.

Is something going on with Livings? I just received an alert (DMN) on my cell that Livings may need more surgery on his knee.

 

[cowboys2233]

I wouldn't say things are falling apart just because we move Free to guard. This happens in the NFL. Look at the Giants shuffling their line around. I'm sure other teams are doing it as well, but they're not the Cowboys so it doesn't make the ESPN ticker.

If Fee can play Left/Right tackle in the NFL, which by all accounts he has really stepped things up this year, then he can play guard. Is Parnell ready to play tackle? Thats the real question.

Costa is a really nice backup to center. We're fine there.
With Livings going down and Arkin a mystery, we have a need there. That's why we were kicking the tires on Moore and Waters.
Parnell is a good backup at tackle. Maybe Bell or Weems squeeze into the mix as well.

So backup guard is something we'll be looking for in the next couple of weeks for sure.

I hope you're right. I don't think I can take another season of watching Romo, Murray and Co. get undone by a horrific offensive line.

 

[Doomsay]

Two weeks until the season starts and they have no clue who will be playing where on the OL and have come to the conclusion that their backups are not very good. Nothing to worry about!

How in the world did you come to that conclusion?

I think the fact that we are even entertaining backstopping our guards with a tackle who cant even play his own position and trying this only after being rejected by the OL bone-yard in the same pursuit....twice over the past week or so, might have something to do with it.

But I know that you kid

 

[reddyuta]

I hope they sit Romo after one quarter,Free is prone to bull rush and we dont want our season to end before it began.

 

[JoeyBoy718]

I'm interested to see how Parnell does. If he excels, maybe they bench Free if/when we get an adequate RG. Maybe Free will be an excellent RG too. Who knows? It'll be interesting to see. It's just a huge question mark. Pending Leary's health, it seems like we have our LT-LG-C figured out for the future. So that's a plus. Now we're trying to figure out RG-RT.

 

[BlindFaith]

Is something going on with Livings? I just received an alert (DMN) on my cell that Livings may need more surgery on his knee.

I read in a recent article that Jerry indicated that Livings's knee problems may be more of the degenerative type. So even with the surgery he may never fully return.