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Gosselin: Safety Jeff Heath may be Dallas Cowboys' next overlooked college gem
Rick Gosselin
rgosselin@dallasnews.com
Published: 25 August 2013 11:12 PM
The NFL drafts around 255 players every April.
They are the best players the college game has to offer.
But they are not the only players the college game has to offer.
For all the problems the Cowboys seem to have finding talent when they are on the clock during a draft, they have no such problems when the clock stops. No NFL franchise has a better history of signing the undrafted college free agents than the Cowboys.
Cornell Green, Cliff Harris, Drew Pearson, Everson Walls, Bill Bates, Nate Newton, Mark Tuinei, Miles Austin and Tony Romo were passed over in NFL drafts. All signed with the Cowboys and went to a combined 31 Pro Bowls. Harris and Pearson became NFL all-decade selections for the 1970s.
The Cowboys may have found their next overlooked college gem in safety Jeff Heath. If you pull for the underdog, you’re pulling for Heath to find a spot on the 53-man roster of the Cowboys this next week.
I was in Oxnard the opening weekend of training camp, and some of their brass tipped me off then — “Keep an eye on Jeff Heath. He’s a player.”
Heath made quite an impression on the team’s talent evaluators during the noncontact portion of the off-season in the spring. When the Cowboys finally put the pads on this summer, Heath enhanced those impressions of him. And that was by design.
“You have to make every practice a game,” Heath said, “because, as an undrafted player, you have to stand out more so than guys who have been on the team for a while and the guys who have been drafted.”
Heath has stood out. He stood out in Oxnard on the practice field. He stood out in Canton and Oakland covering kicks. Now he has stood out in Phoenix and Arlington playing defense. He made five tackles against the Cardinals and a thundering, fumble-forcing tackle Saturday night against Cincinnati’s Cobi Hamilton. The fumble was recovered by a teammate.
The Cowboys had to dig deep for Heath. He played his college ball at Saginaw Valley (Mich.) State, where he earned All-Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference honors after posting 77 tackles and seven takeaways.
The seven takeaways obviously caught the attention of the Cowboys coaches.
“They’ve been harping on creating turnovers,” Heath said. “As a rookie, especially an undrafted rookie, you have to make your presence felt. The way to do that is to take the ball away.”
Heath did that against Hamilton with a perfect form tackle — shoulder to the waist and arms wrapped around the ball carrier’s legs to stop the forward progress. In a league that has forgotten how to tackle, Heath is there to remind everyone how it’s done.
But what impressed Brandon Carr about Heath was his college breeding. Carr also earned All-GLIAC honors as a defensive back at Grand Valley State, where he rose from his own humble football beginnings to become a $50 million NFL cornerback for the Cowboys.
“I like him,” Carr said. “He brings the wood. And he’s a guy who has a chip on his shoulder.”
It’s likely the same-sized chip on the shoulder Harris brought from Ouachita Baptist. Or Austin brought from Monmouth. Or Romo from Eastern Illinois. There’s an old scouting bromide — if you can play, the NFL will find you.
“Coming out of high school I had one offer — from a D-II school,” Heath said. “Then going through the draft process, going undrafted … That’s basically every team telling you you’re not good enough. It hurts at first, but you can turn it into motivation.”
A motivated Heath agreed to sign with the Cowboys because they were the first team to contact him after the draft. The Cowboys also were among a small handful of teams that attended his pro day, timing him in a 4.48 40-yard dash.
Watching him play now, you wonder why a player with his size (6-1, 209), speed, production and quality of character wasn’t drafted.
Look long enough and you’ll see a little Cliff Harris in Heath’s game — that combination of speed and striking ability. If the Cowboys defensive coaches look even harder, they’ll see a little John Lynch in his game — patrolling the secondary like a cop with a radar gun.
Lynch provided Monte Kiffin a prototype for the safety position in this Tampa Two defensive scheme. He was always around the football. The scheme brought out the best in John Lynch. And it can bring out the best in Jeff Heath.
Listen to Rick Gosselin at 10:50 a.m. Tuesdays on The Ticket (KTCK-AM 1310) with Norm Hitzges.
Rick Gosselin
rgosselin@dallasnews.com
Published: 25 August 2013 11:12 PM
The NFL drafts around 255 players every April.
They are the best players the college game has to offer.
But they are not the only players the college game has to offer.
For all the problems the Cowboys seem to have finding talent when they are on the clock during a draft, they have no such problems when the clock stops. No NFL franchise has a better history of signing the undrafted college free agents than the Cowboys.
Cornell Green, Cliff Harris, Drew Pearson, Everson Walls, Bill Bates, Nate Newton, Mark Tuinei, Miles Austin and Tony Romo were passed over in NFL drafts. All signed with the Cowboys and went to a combined 31 Pro Bowls. Harris and Pearson became NFL all-decade selections for the 1970s.
The Cowboys may have found their next overlooked college gem in safety Jeff Heath. If you pull for the underdog, you’re pulling for Heath to find a spot on the 53-man roster of the Cowboys this next week.
I was in Oxnard the opening weekend of training camp, and some of their brass tipped me off then — “Keep an eye on Jeff Heath. He’s a player.”
Heath made quite an impression on the team’s talent evaluators during the noncontact portion of the off-season in the spring. When the Cowboys finally put the pads on this summer, Heath enhanced those impressions of him. And that was by design.
“You have to make every practice a game,” Heath said, “because, as an undrafted player, you have to stand out more so than guys who have been on the team for a while and the guys who have been drafted.”
Heath has stood out. He stood out in Oxnard on the practice field. He stood out in Canton and Oakland covering kicks. Now he has stood out in Phoenix and Arlington playing defense. He made five tackles against the Cardinals and a thundering, fumble-forcing tackle Saturday night against Cincinnati’s Cobi Hamilton. The fumble was recovered by a teammate.
The Cowboys had to dig deep for Heath. He played his college ball at Saginaw Valley (Mich.) State, where he earned All-Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference honors after posting 77 tackles and seven takeaways.
The seven takeaways obviously caught the attention of the Cowboys coaches.
“They’ve been harping on creating turnovers,” Heath said. “As a rookie, especially an undrafted rookie, you have to make your presence felt. The way to do that is to take the ball away.”
Heath did that against Hamilton with a perfect form tackle — shoulder to the waist and arms wrapped around the ball carrier’s legs to stop the forward progress. In a league that has forgotten how to tackle, Heath is there to remind everyone how it’s done.
But what impressed Brandon Carr about Heath was his college breeding. Carr also earned All-GLIAC honors as a defensive back at Grand Valley State, where he rose from his own humble football beginnings to become a $50 million NFL cornerback for the Cowboys.
“I like him,” Carr said. “He brings the wood. And he’s a guy who has a chip on his shoulder.”
It’s likely the same-sized chip on the shoulder Harris brought from Ouachita Baptist. Or Austin brought from Monmouth. Or Romo from Eastern Illinois. There’s an old scouting bromide — if you can play, the NFL will find you.
“Coming out of high school I had one offer — from a D-II school,” Heath said. “Then going through the draft process, going undrafted … That’s basically every team telling you you’re not good enough. It hurts at first, but you can turn it into motivation.”
A motivated Heath agreed to sign with the Cowboys because they were the first team to contact him after the draft. The Cowboys also were among a small handful of teams that attended his pro day, timing him in a 4.48 40-yard dash.
Watching him play now, you wonder why a player with his size (6-1, 209), speed, production and quality of character wasn’t drafted.
Look long enough and you’ll see a little Cliff Harris in Heath’s game — that combination of speed and striking ability. If the Cowboys defensive coaches look even harder, they’ll see a little John Lynch in his game — patrolling the secondary like a cop with a radar gun.
Lynch provided Monte Kiffin a prototype for the safety position in this Tampa Two defensive scheme. He was always around the football. The scheme brought out the best in John Lynch. And it can bring out the best in Jeff Heath.
Listen to Rick Gosselin at 10:50 a.m. Tuesdays on The Ticket (KTCK-AM 1310) with Norm Hitzges.
