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Bryant both frustrating and elating for Cowboys
Dez Bryant's lone touchdown of the day against Buffalo was spectacular because of how easy it was. (Matthew Emmons/US PRESSWIRE)
November 13, 2011
Cowboys on performance
Dallas coach Jason Garrett and QB Tony Romo analyze the 44-7 victory against Buffalo.
(Matthew Emmons/US Presswire)
Check out photos from the Cowboys' big win over the Bills.
• Cowboys offense loves Murray
• New look working for Cowboys
• Romo praised for performance
• Sean Lee battling through injury
• Dez Bryant heading right direction
• Jones: Murray's injury 'not an issue'
(Matthew Emmons/US Presswire)
Bills WR David Nelson gave his Cowboys cheerleader girlfriend the ball after scoring a TD. Check out photos of all the cheerleaders.
ARLINGTON -- Dez Bryant's only touchdown Sunday was spectacular for many reasons, mostly its ease.
He was behind the Buffalo cornerback as the pass arrived. They both jumped, Dez just much higher. Then he reached over Leodis McKelvin, took the ball from his hands and came down with it easily.
"He's a freak when the ball is in the air," Cowboys tight end Jason Witten said.
Dez might be the most freakishly talented wide receiver in a league loaded with them. So why do the Cowboys not have him flying his freak flag every week? Why is a guy with Calvin Johnson-like talent not having a Megatron impact more consistently?
Welcome to the Dez dilemma.
Halves of football go by without a Dez sighting. The Cowboys game plan does not target him or he is not in the right spot when it does. He has breakout games then disappears. He has great catches then goes away. There are moments, like Sunday, when they say "This is why we drafted him". There are others when they wonder "What the hell were we thinking?"
"He has been frustrating and he has been elating," Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said conceded. "It was exactly what we thought when we drafted him, right to a tee. If we didn't plan on having a little frustration, we should have gone in a different direction. But there have been no surprises with him."
The frustrating things that came standard with Dez were why so many teams passed on him in the draft. The consensus was and is he is just not that smart.
I have a problem with this for many reasons.
Stupid is a bad word, or so my mom told us growing up. It is not nice. It is also subjective. And in Dez's case, it has been used to absolve everybody else of responsibility for his mercurial impact. Jerry Jones is right. They knew exactly what they were getting in Dez--the good, the bad, the frustrating. They decided the talent outweighed the issues.
It is on them to make that true. They need to manage their freakishly talented talent.
Because the Cowboys are dangerous if Dez finds beast mode. They may be anyway.
What this 44-7 victory against Buffalo demonstrated is how good the Cowboys can be when not getting in their own way. The doubt comes from incomprehensible gags against the N.Y. Jets and Detroit. The unwillingness to discount them comes from performances like Sunday.
Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo delivered a dominating and, more importantly, 60-minute performance. He obviously benefitted from removing the Kevlar jacket that had been protecting his ribs. They finally have a running game thanks to rookie DeMarco Murray doing what Felix Jones was incapable of as a starter. Their defense was good. They got a lead and built on it. There was not choke.
Yes, it was against the fraudulent Bills. But their fellow NFC East friends were doing much worse against much worse.
The Dream Team Eagles delivered a dog-butt performance in Philly, with their season on the line, against the Cardinals of all teams. They are done. Washington somehow managed to out-Redskin themselves, losing to Miami. What was once a good rivalry, Redskins-Cowboys, has absolute zero juice this week.
Only the Giants remain as contenders, barely losing to a really good San Francisco team Sunday.
The NFC East is likely to be decided on Dec. 11 and January 1, when Dallas and New York play. And to beat the Giants, the Cowboys need Dez the Freak not Dez the Dilemma.
They need him to be a threat. They need him to be where he is supposed to be. They need him to make plays. They need him doing what he did Sunday, coming down with a jump ball in the end zone.
"I just feel like the ball is mine," Dez said afterward. "I feel like Romo knows that (he can trust me). Romo knows I can do a lot of stuff."
So much of football is about trust. Timing necessitates a quarterback throwing the ball to where the receiver is not yet. The frustration for Romo was Dez was only sometimes where he needed to be oftentimes with disastrous consequences. It was frustrating enough for Jerry Jones to reference Dez's sloppy route running in his post-Patriots-loss rant.
It goes back to they knew what they were getting. Nor has Romo been a paragon of consistency.
The answer is the same as with Romo. You live with the frustrating because the good days are so freakishly good. The onus is on the Cowboys to manage him. I nicknamed Cowboys coach Jason Garrett The Redheaded Genius. And even an idiot could figure out how to best use Dez. The RHG has to use all of that brain power to figure out what Dez can do and do consistently and then keep going to it.
Talent is easy. Consistency is harder, especially in the skill position.
Teams have started to roll their coverages. They press Dez at the line of scrimmage.
"He's had challenges with that," Witten said. "And once people see that, they try to attack that way. He's worked hard.If he can perfect that, when he gets the ball in his hands he's really dangerous."
Actually he's a freak. And freaks, when consistently freakish, make their teams dangerous as demonstrated on Sunday.
"Dez is really doing a lot better each week relative to what he's doing on the practice field and he's growing as a man off the field," Jerry Jones said. "There is nothing that we as an organization, as a coaching staff shouldn't be doing to help a player get better. We only 53 of them. ... We shouldn't have a situation where we're not paying attention on and off the field. I feel very strongly that we should help a guy like Dez."
The Dez Dilemma is why more people in the Cowboys organization do not get this.
Tags: Dez Bryant, NFL, Buffalo Bills, Dallas Cowboys, Jen Floyd Engel
Dez Bryant's lone touchdown of the day against Buffalo was spectacular because of how easy it was. (Matthew Emmons/US PRESSWIRE)
| ARCHIVE | EMAIL Jen Floyd Engel is a national writer for FOXSports.com. She covered local sports for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram since 1997 and became a columnist in 2003. Sports opinions? She's never short of them. And love her or hate her, she'll be just another one of the boys. |
FacebookNovember 13, 2011
Cowboys on performance
Dallas coach Jason Garrett and QB Tony Romo analyze the 44-7 victory against Buffalo.
(Matthew Emmons/US Presswire)
Check out photos from the Cowboys' big win over the Bills.
• Cowboys offense loves Murray
• New look working for Cowboys
• Romo praised for performance
• Sean Lee battling through injury
• Dez Bryant heading right direction
• Jones: Murray's injury 'not an issue'
(Matthew Emmons/US Presswire)
Bills WR David Nelson gave his Cowboys cheerleader girlfriend the ball after scoring a TD. Check out photos of all the cheerleaders.
ARLINGTON -- Dez Bryant's only touchdown Sunday was spectacular for many reasons, mostly its ease.
He was behind the Buffalo cornerback as the pass arrived. They both jumped, Dez just much higher. Then he reached over Leodis McKelvin, took the ball from his hands and came down with it easily.
"He's a freak when the ball is in the air," Cowboys tight end Jason Witten said.
Dez might be the most freakishly talented wide receiver in a league loaded with them. So why do the Cowboys not have him flying his freak flag every week? Why is a guy with Calvin Johnson-like talent not having a Megatron impact more consistently?
Welcome to the Dez dilemma.
Halves of football go by without a Dez sighting. The Cowboys game plan does not target him or he is not in the right spot when it does. He has breakout games then disappears. He has great catches then goes away. There are moments, like Sunday, when they say "This is why we drafted him". There are others when they wonder "What the hell were we thinking?"
"He has been frustrating and he has been elating," Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said conceded. "It was exactly what we thought when we drafted him, right to a tee. If we didn't plan on having a little frustration, we should have gone in a different direction. But there have been no surprises with him."
The frustrating things that came standard with Dez were why so many teams passed on him in the draft. The consensus was and is he is just not that smart.
I have a problem with this for many reasons.
Stupid is a bad word, or so my mom told us growing up. It is not nice. It is also subjective. And in Dez's case, it has been used to absolve everybody else of responsibility for his mercurial impact. Jerry Jones is right. They knew exactly what they were getting in Dez--the good, the bad, the frustrating. They decided the talent outweighed the issues.
It is on them to make that true. They need to manage their freakishly talented talent.
Because the Cowboys are dangerous if Dez finds beast mode. They may be anyway.
What this 44-7 victory against Buffalo demonstrated is how good the Cowboys can be when not getting in their own way. The doubt comes from incomprehensible gags against the N.Y. Jets and Detroit. The unwillingness to discount them comes from performances like Sunday.
Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo delivered a dominating and, more importantly, 60-minute performance. He obviously benefitted from removing the Kevlar jacket that had been protecting his ribs. They finally have a running game thanks to rookie DeMarco Murray doing what Felix Jones was incapable of as a starter. Their defense was good. They got a lead and built on it. There was not choke.
Yes, it was against the fraudulent Bills. But their fellow NFC East friends were doing much worse against much worse.
The Dream Team Eagles delivered a dog-butt performance in Philly, with their season on the line, against the Cardinals of all teams. They are done. Washington somehow managed to out-Redskin themselves, losing to Miami. What was once a good rivalry, Redskins-Cowboys, has absolute zero juice this week.
Only the Giants remain as contenders, barely losing to a really good San Francisco team Sunday.
The NFC East is likely to be decided on Dec. 11 and January 1, when Dallas and New York play. And to beat the Giants, the Cowboys need Dez the Freak not Dez the Dilemma.
They need him to be a threat. They need him to be where he is supposed to be. They need him to make plays. They need him doing what he did Sunday, coming down with a jump ball in the end zone.
"I just feel like the ball is mine," Dez said afterward. "I feel like Romo knows that (he can trust me). Romo knows I can do a lot of stuff."
So much of football is about trust. Timing necessitates a quarterback throwing the ball to where the receiver is not yet. The frustration for Romo was Dez was only sometimes where he needed to be oftentimes with disastrous consequences. It was frustrating enough for Jerry Jones to reference Dez's sloppy route running in his post-Patriots-loss rant.
It goes back to they knew what they were getting. Nor has Romo been a paragon of consistency.
The answer is the same as with Romo. You live with the frustrating because the good days are so freakishly good. The onus is on the Cowboys to manage him. I nicknamed Cowboys coach Jason Garrett The Redheaded Genius. And even an idiot could figure out how to best use Dez. The RHG has to use all of that brain power to figure out what Dez can do and do consistently and then keep going to it.
Talent is easy. Consistency is harder, especially in the skill position.
Teams have started to roll their coverages. They press Dez at the line of scrimmage.
"He's had challenges with that," Witten said. "And once people see that, they try to attack that way. He's worked hard.If he can perfect that, when he gets the ball in his hands he's really dangerous."
Actually he's a freak. And freaks, when consistently freakish, make their teams dangerous as demonstrated on Sunday.
"Dez is really doing a lot better each week relative to what he's doing on the practice field and he's growing as a man off the field," Jerry Jones said. "There is nothing that we as an organization, as a coaching staff shouldn't be doing to help a player get better. We only 53 of them. ... We shouldn't have a situation where we're not paying attention on and off the field. I feel very strongly that we should help a guy like Dez."
The Dez Dilemma is why more people in the Cowboys organization do not get this.
Tags: Dez Bryant, NFL, Buffalo Bills, Dallas Cowboys, Jen Floyd Engel
