News: SAEN: Austin feels guilty taking time off

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IRVING – A coach-imposed day off isn’t what veteran wide receiver Miles Austin had in mind when he reported to the Dallas Cowboys’ mandatory three-day minicamp this week.

But there he was Wednesday, watching anxiously from the sideline while Dez Bryant and the team’s other wideouts sweated their way through practice.

“I want to go, but when coach says you can’t, you’ve just got to kind of sit down and not go,” Austin said Thursday after returning to action for the final practice before training camp next month.

“It’s tough for me just to watch the other guys going and not be out there, especially in this heat and knowing how it is to play wide receiver. You are out there running and you get tired and you want at least a few more bodies in there to take some of that load off, but coach told me not to.”

Guilty feelings aside, the Cowboys believe resting Austin is the smart thing to do after hamstring injuries and other ailments forced him to miss time the last two seasons.
Austin, who turns 29 on June 30, also sat out practices here and there during OTAs, a trend that could continue at camp in Oxnard, Calif.

“We certainly feel great about Miles, and the only issue we’ve had with Miles is simply the health,” coach Jason Garrett said earlier this year.

“We have had a lot of discussions with Miles. It’s a very comprehensive discussion. Hydrating is certainly part of it. Protecting Miles from himself is certainly a part of it. Miles’ greatest strength is he still views himself as a college free agent from Monmouth University. He’s going to run through that wall for you every single day because that’s his mentality…So we’ve got to teach him a little bit and we’ve tried to do that – tried to protect him from himself.”

Austin played in all 16 games last season, but hamstring, hip and ankle injuries plagued him at various points from training camp through the season finale.

Still, Austin managed to catch 66 passes for 943 yards and six touchdowns. While those are solid numbers, they fall way short of the 81-catch, 1,320-yard, 11-TD effort he posted in 2009.

Austin followed that breakout season with another 1,000-yard season. But in 2011, he missed six games because of hamstring injuries and produced only 579 yards.

On Thursday, Austin sidestepped a question about whether he can lift his game to where it was in 2009, saying, “I am going to try to play the best I can.” Asked whether he can be a Pro Bowl player if he stays healthy, Austin said, “I’m just trying to win games.”

That low-key approach stands in sharp contrast to Bryant, who said in March he’s confident he can become the NFL’s first 2,000-yard receiver after catching 92 passes for 1,382 yards and 12 TDs last season.

So what are Austin’s goals?

“I just want to help us as much as I can,” he said, “and help us get as far as we can with the obviously eventual goal of playing in the last game of the year.”

In order to make that happen, the Cowboys believe he’ll need his rest – guilt or no guilt.

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