MarionBarberThe4th
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http://www.dallascowboys.com/news/news.cfm?id=9C9E7085-CD4D-A715-6B4C2354697273FD&editorialAuthor=1
I thought that part was kind of dumb
Ive gone back and forth on this guy 3 times today. There is a sense of him just being one of those guys that doesnt get it
IRVING, Texas - This keeps giving me pause. Makes my skin crawl a little bit, too, just thinking about the possibility.
Should cause you, too, to pause, not drool.
All this pre-draft conjecture about Dez Bryant falling to the Cowboys at No. 27.
Say what? A guy I see who is ranked as high as the No. 3 best player on at least one so-called draft guru's board falling all the way to No. 27? Red flag? Huh, that's a matador's red cape.
Me thinks the Cowboys really would rather not have to make the decision believe it or not: To draft Dez or not to draft Dez?
No, no, the snow one weekend around here and 75 degrees the next hasn't thrown my brain off-kilter. There is something about this kid that makes me grimace, and evidently, if you have been doing your reading, others from other teams are grimacing too.
In fact, while attending the University of Oklahoma Pro Day workout a couple of weeks ago in Norman, Okla., overheard more than one person say they would prefer someone else ahead of them in the draft take him so they wouldn't have to decide whether to pull the trigger or not on the former Oklahoma State wide receiver.
Now this has nothing to solely do with Bryant being suspended by the NCAA three games into his junior season for "unethical conduct," the technical classification for lying to NCAA investigators when asked if he had been in direct contact with Deion Sanders. The NCAA didn't get its panties in a wad over the contact, even though there were worries about Sanders being an accessory of agent Eugene Parker, as much as it did about being lied to by some 20-year-old during an interview.
And you know what, my pause really isn't about Bryant only having a 29-game body of college work to properly judge his talent or even the fact that he hasn't played a game of football since Sept. 19 of 2009.
It's just the entire picture, the vibe you get from someone who's always got something going on, and it's never his fault. You know what I mean?
Let's see, the kid had October, November, December, January and most of February to get ready for the most important job interview of his life. Nothing else to do but work out and stay in shape just to put his best foot forward at the late February NFL Combine.
What happens? He doesn't work out for the annual gathering of 32 teams in Indianapolis. Something about a tweaked hamstring. OK, stuff happens. Catch you dude in a couple of weeks at the Oklahoma State Pro Day on the Stillwater campus on March 10, day after the OU Pro Day, and but an hour or so up the road.
What happens? He doesn't work out again. Still something about a tweaked hamstring, causing the murmurs to swell on the OU campus that day among a whole bunch of scouts who are a rather skeptical bunch by nature.
Now what? Well, Bryant decides he'll just have his own private workout at Oklahoma State following Sam Bradford's private workout previously scheduled for March 25 at Oklahoma. Well, OSU now says no to staging another workout, and Bradford then pushes his workout back to March 30.
So Bryant, working out these days in New Orleans - says he's working every day for three to four hours - decides he'll stage the Biggest Interview Of His Life Re-redo next week in his hometown of Lufkin, Texas, about 85 miles south and a tad west of Tyler, Texas, and neighboring Nacogdoches and Diboll. Get the picture? Out in the middle of Nowhere, Texas, no place these scouts, scouting directors, head coaches or even owners can really easily fly into.
In fact, how about this quote from Pittsburgh Hall of Fame defensive tackle and now scout "Mean" Joe Greene when finding out Bryant was skipping the OSU Pro Day to work out in Lufkin: "I knew he wasn't going to be here but they have other players here other than Dez Bryant. I'm sure he's realizing that the show keeps going on without him."
And when asked if he would be making the trip to Lufkin later in the month, Greene, born and raised in the Central Texas town of Temple and a former University of North Texas great, said, "I haven't been to Lufkin in all of my years in Texas, and I don't plan to go to Lufkin any time soon."
The insinuations have been Bryant didn't
have himself in shape; was not ready to be timed in a 40. And after all that time.
Red flag after red flag.
Again stuff happens, but when it comes to investing millions of dollars and a first-round pick on such an individual, does all this other stuff cloud what evidently is an abundance of NFL-caliber talent? Character and accountability do mean something in the NFL, and that became a proven fact around The Ranch this past season after the Cowboys hosed out all the locker room rats over recent years.
Plus, just for a moment, let's pull back the curtains on Bryant's brilliant Oklahoma State career that ended with 147 catches for 2,425 yards and 29 touchdowns in his 28-game college career. But I did notice this about his sophomore season when he finished with 87 catches for 1,480 yards and 19 touchdowns in 12 games (bowl game included): 47 percent of his catches that year, 42 percent of his yards and 33 percent of his touchdowns came in three games against none other than the University of Houston, Baylor and Iowa State.
Just sayin', when the Cowboys play Houston it's the Texans not Cougars.
So yeah, Bryant just might be the No. 1 receiver on a lot of team's draft boards, but guarantee you there is some sort of tag right now next to his name, be it red, yellow or otherwise to signal "caution."
In his defense, Bryant was quoted just the other days as saying about his postponed workouts, "I just needed to be 100 percent for sure. The scouts haven't seen me in a long time. Whenever they see me, I want to be ready to go."
Now the Cowboys definitely want to see him. They will be there at his workout. And just for insurance sake, the Cowboys are including Bryant among the maximum of 30 pre-draft visits at The Ranch over the next week or so, and not a "private" workout as was erroneously reported unless they can figure out how to decrease the distance between The Ranch and Lufkin to no more than the allowable 100 miles for Dallas Day. Otherwise, anything else would draw a serious NFL citation.
Why even that? Well, as owner Jerry Jones said from the NFL meetings about the Cowboys, at No. 27 and likely out of Bryant's draftable range unless those already existing red capes continue to expand, "I just don't want to be sitting there on draft day with a great opportunity and not having really done what we ought to have been doing which is know everything about him or any other player of that quality."
Who knows, funnier things have happened in the draft. See Randy Moss. See Brady Quinn. If something should unexpectedly fall in your lap, you damn well better know why, and not automatically think you are smarter than, say, the other 26 teams who passed. Some things, you know, really are too good to be true.
So the Cowboys will do their due diligence on Bryant, even if it's most likely all for naught. Someone will take a chance on Bryant. Right?
But if he starts to tumble, even he even falls within trade-up range, you better know what you're bargaining for. You had better know more than just his 40 time and all those catches at Oklahoma State.
You better have factored in his upbringing, a New York Times article documenting how he was born to 15-year-old mother Angela, who had three kids by the age of 18, and who ended up spending 18 months in prison for selling cocaine to an undercover agent, all causing Bryant to grow up in three different homes.
And you had better factor in what OSU receivers coach Gunter Brewer said of Bryant after pointing out how far he had come at Oklahoma State and that he's truly a good kid and that he had "hands like waffle irons": Drafting him means the team needs to "invest in guidance."
That is the second time I've heard that about Bryant, that drafting him means there had better be club-willingness to hold his hand off the field and outside the training complex.
Even NFL Network draft analyst Mike Mayock has gone on record saying this about Bryant: "He has to convince teams he has the work ethic and intelligence necessary to compete at the highest level when they hand him an awful lot of money."
So if I'm Bryant, when they walk me in to Jones' office in the next week or so, I'm walking in like Jason Williams did last year wearing a coat and tie, not in some sweats with a ball cap cocked a quarter turn and acting all ambivalent as I heard Moss did back in 1998. I'm yes sir and no sir and apologizing for having your guys drive all the way out to Lufkin to check me out.
Don't let a soul even remotely think falling into their lap is too good to be true, no matter if they are drafting third, 11th or 27th.
Otherwise, my present-day pause might become 32-team contagious.
I thought that part was kind of dumb
Ive gone back and forth on this guy 3 times today. There is a sense of him just being one of those guys that doesnt get it
