Part of a player's value is their reliability. That is, their ability or inability to get out there on the field. Obviously, being injured detriments reliability. Suspensions would be another. Then there is also a drop in performance for one reason or another.
Tyrone Crawford's reliability issues lies exclusively with the unfortunate injuries that seem to occur more than average. I believe it is the most uncontrollable one of the issues that detriment reliability. I'm not saying that there isn't, perhaps, something that could decrease the possibility, but it is still the one that is the least controllable.
I guess what I'm saying is that there are those tragic cases where a player has so much potential, You can see flashes of what he could possibly achieve when he is on the field but then, wham! There he goes hobbling off the field. Some players just seemed cursed. The laws of probability have picked them out to be the occasional counterexample.
Mike Sherrard was such a player, broke his leg two years in a row, once just jogging on the beach. He was a 1st round pick a few years before Irvin, electric speed out of college. His mother was an Olympian runner. The Cowboys just couldn't carry him another year and cut him. He pretty much sat out a year and then finished up with a few nice seasons with the Giants, but man, he could have been a HOFer, he was the most exciting receiver I had seen since Bob Hayes. It just wasn't meant to be.
Another cowboy 1st round pick was LB Billy Cannon Jr. His father was Heisman trophy winner and AFL All-Pro Billy Cannon, a RB who helped the Houston Oilers in the first two ever AFL championships.
Anyway, the kid could play and everyone expected him to be the next great MLB in the league. He broke his neck in the 8th game of his rookie year and had to retire.
It's just part of football, there is the small percentage of players that get bad break after bad break and I think that Tyrone is one of those players. The thing is, when you begin to add these injuries up, the player can no longer be the player he could have been.
Crawford may not make the cut, the Cowboys must move forward and there is a lot of talent trying to make this team. It doesn't mean that he's a disappointment or a bust it would just mean that he was unlucky. Right now, I think the most I can hope for is a productive rotational player at DE if he can make it back in time.
The average D-Lineman drafted in the 3rd round between 2000 and 2008 had a six year career and averaged 41 starts, Crawford would be going into his 5th season and he has had 44 starts.
