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Miles Austin tries to cut down on the dropsOctober, 27, 2010 Oct 274:36PM CTEmail Print Comments
By Calvin Watkins

IRVING -- Cowboys wide receiver Miles Austin has a team-leading four drops, tied for fifth in the NFL which is one fewer than he had last season.

In Monday's loss, Austin was credited with one drop, in the end zone, but it could have been two drops. Austin had another pass hit his hands as well.

Austin is seeing more pass attempts this year because he's the featured passing threat. He's been targeted 54 times according to Stats LLC.

The dropped passes bother him so he's working extra after practice to curtail it.

"It's tough, it's nothing that I want to do I can promise you that," Austin said. "All I can do is get extra catches in and it’s a lapse of concentration. Right before the ball comes I try to think about what I was thinking about, right before, and every time it's not the ball. You need to think about the ball."

Now last year, Austin didn't really come on strong until Week 5 of the 2009 season when he caught 10 passes for a 250 yards with two touchdowns in an overtime victory against Kansas City.

Austin has been inconsistent this year. He grabbed 20 passes for 288 yards with one touchdown the first two weeks of the season.

But in the victory over Houston, Week 3, he had just two catches.

Austin bounced back with nine catches for 166 yards and one touchdown in a loss to Tennessee, but the following two games, Austin had a combined five catches with no touchdowns.

Defenses are showing Austin a variety of coverages this year, from man-to-man, to Cover 2, and he's still having a pretty good year. He ranks 17th in the league in catches with 36.

Last year, Austin had 613 yards after catch, good for third in the NFL.

This season, Austin is tied for ninth with 218.

He would like that number to move up and though Tony Romo won't be the quarterback for an extended period of time due to injury, Austin said finding a groove with Jon Kitna won't be a problem.

"We've been practicing the last couple of years together," Austin said. "Even though I’m out there with Tony a lot, I go out there with the scout team sometimes. A lot of guys work with the scout team and we run with all the quarterbacks. Our timing, I don’t feel like, will be an issue."
 
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