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Mickey Spagnola
DallasCowboys.com Columnist
This story originally appeared in Dallas Cowboys Star Magazine. For subscription information, please click here.
IRVING, Texas - Rules, rules, everywhere a rule in this new-age National Football League.
There are rules for how many offseason workouts teams can have, and when those workouts can begin.
There are rules for how many times a day shoulder pads can be worn during training camp and how many combined hours of practice there can be when holding two-a-days.
There are rules for how many times a week teams can practice in pads during the regular season (no more than twice), but a cumulative rule for what that total can be over the first 11 weeks of the season (11).
And now, this week, the Dallas Cowboys will run into one of the newer rules scripted into the Collective Bargaining Agreement completed just before the start of the 2011 training camp between the NFL owners and the NFL Players Association:
Number of mandatory consecutive days off during the bye week.
That would be four - straight. None of this a day off on Tuesday, practice on Wednesday and Thursday, a day off on Friday, practice on Saturday and a day off on Sunday and Monday.
Most of all, though, none of this is left to the discretion of the individual head coach, and likely the rule was instituted thanks to the likes of Czar Bill, who was dead set against giving his players too many days off in a row, somewhat for good reason. In fact, former Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells (2003-06) was so secretive about his weekly plan during the bye, he would not give the players the entire week's schedule on purpose, trying to make weekend excursions more difficult (i.e. expensive) to book.
When questioned about his bye-week methods back in 2003 with the Cowboys heading into the bye at 1-1 - yes, Week 3 - and the staggered schedule appearing to be a purposeful deterrent to players leaving town, Parcells snapped, "You take it how you want to. Why do I do it? Did you read about Joey Porter? That's why I do it."
Yes, everyone had read about Joey Porter. The then-Pittsburgh linebacker had returned to his old alma mater during an off-weekend following the final preseason game that summer to attend the Colorado vs. Colorado State game, and while in Denver was shot in the buttocks in a drive-by shooting attack that killed one person and injured four others.
There indeed was a method to Parcells' madness.
Now there is legislation to counter such logical, but considered controlling, old-school thinking if any head coach had the inclination.
The new CBA mandates the Cowboys players have those four consecutive off days this week, and Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett had decided heading into this past Sunday's game against Detroit at Cowboys Stadium that the players would be off Thursday through Sunday, with everyone scheduled to return to The Ranch on Monday, Oct. 10, to begin preparation for the Oct. 16 game at New England.
"It's huge to have those days," says Cowboys ninth-year linebacker Bradie James. "You just got to get away and recoup. Some guys would have you practice one day, be off the next, practice the next day, off the next. But like this, now we know."
In fact, those some-guy coaches around The Ranch all handled the bye week a little bit differently ever since the NFL instituted the bye during the 1990 season, then experimented with two byes during the 1993 season, going back to just one ever since. First up was Jimmy Johnson, and the Cowboys' first bye didn't arrive until Week 14, interrupting a three-game winning streak which turned into four two weeks later during that 7-9 season.
Johnson routinely gave the team the weekend off. Two days. That was it. Barry Switzer followed with the same routine. Chan Gailey was a tad more compassionate. He would give the players three days off (Friday-Sunday).
Dave Campo followed suit, three days off, Friday through Sunday, as did Wade Phillips.
But Bill was a different story, and guessing because of coaches like Parcells, the Players Association demanded conformity in the new CBA when dealing with the bye week. Speaking of guessing, that's what Parcells kept the players doing - guessing if they would have a day off or not, and if they did when those would come. That 2003 season, Parcells tried to insure his players didn't leave town - or if they did, not for long - by practicing on Saturday, and not telling them if they had Sunday and/or Monday off until Saturday's practice was completed.
He did give them Sunday and Monday off, but even that small reprieve came with a message: Don't go anywhere.
"He said, 'Don't go out of town,'" running back Aveion Cason said at the time. "Don't leave town."
Even if the players didn't heed his advice, any such trip would be an expensive one. Ever try booking airfare the day before going somewhere? Ouch!
But those now are days gone by. So is any such message.
That is something with which Garrett must deal, and he likely looks at these days off a little differently now as a head coach than he did during his playing days. No coach likes to lose touch with his players in the middle of the season. But there also is another decision: How to practice not only during the bye, which the Cowboys were planning to do Tuesday and Wednesday, but also when the players return on the 10th?
"We'll probably get back into our normal routine, based on how our roster is at that time," Garrett said prior to the Detroit game of using a couple of the allowed pad practices they did not during the short week following the Monday night game. "We'll try to accommodate the schedule and also the injuries we've had over the past couple of weeks and maybe have different kinds of practices than we normally would have."
And that's certainly possible with the four consecutive days off the Cowboys players were expected to enjoy the end of this week, an important aspect for the NFLPA while negotiating the new CBA this summer.
"This allows us to totally get away, and come back refreshed," says Cowboys tight end Jason Witten, also the team's player-rep. "Just to get a consistent four days off. We wanted that clear with the language (in the CBA). That was a focal point of it."
So now, no matter who the head coach is, and no matter if the record is 3-1 or 2-2 following Sunday's Detroit game, the Cowboys will get their four consecutive days off and report back to work on Monday.
After all, rules are rules.
Bye the Numbers
- Over the last 17 seasons, ever since 1994 when the NFL consistently played a 16-game schedule over 17 weeks with just one bye included, the Cowboys have posted a 98-89 record after the bye, which has landed anywhere from the third week of the season (three times) to the 10th week of the season (twice).
- Only three times have the Cowboys gone into the bye with a winning record and finished with a losing mark over the remaining games following the bye. That would have taken place in 1997, the Cowboys 2-1 going into the bye and then 4-9 over the final 13 games after the bye; again in 1999, starting off 2-0 going into the bye, then, after losing Michael Irvin for the season - and his career - in Game 4, ending up 6-8 in the final 14 games of Gailey's coaching career with the Cowboys after the bye; and the third in 2004, the Cowboys 2-1 heading into the bye and 4-9 afterward.
- The opposite has occurred only once, the Cowboys in 1996 only 2-3 in those first five games with Irvin serving his five-game suspension for conduct detrimental to the league and then going 8-3 after the bye.
- Two other times the Cowboys were no more than a .500 team heading into the bye, both times just 1-1, yet went 9-5 over the final 14 games in 2003 and then 8-6 after the 2006 bye.
- The Cowboys are 6-2 over the past eight games after the bye.
- In the 22 games immediately following all byes, including the two spliced into the 1993 season, the Cowboys own a 15-7 record.
DallasCowboys.com Columnist
This story originally appeared in Dallas Cowboys Star Magazine. For subscription information, please click here.
IRVING, Texas - Rules, rules, everywhere a rule in this new-age National Football League.
There are rules for how many offseason workouts teams can have, and when those workouts can begin.
There are rules for how many times a day shoulder pads can be worn during training camp and how many combined hours of practice there can be when holding two-a-days.
There are rules for how many times a week teams can practice in pads during the regular season (no more than twice), but a cumulative rule for what that total can be over the first 11 weeks of the season (11).
And now, this week, the Dallas Cowboys will run into one of the newer rules scripted into the Collective Bargaining Agreement completed just before the start of the 2011 training camp between the NFL owners and the NFL Players Association:
Number of mandatory consecutive days off during the bye week.
That would be four - straight. None of this a day off on Tuesday, practice on Wednesday and Thursday, a day off on Friday, practice on Saturday and a day off on Sunday and Monday.
Most of all, though, none of this is left to the discretion of the individual head coach, and likely the rule was instituted thanks to the likes of Czar Bill, who was dead set against giving his players too many days off in a row, somewhat for good reason. In fact, former Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells (2003-06) was so secretive about his weekly plan during the bye, he would not give the players the entire week's schedule on purpose, trying to make weekend excursions more difficult (i.e. expensive) to book.
When questioned about his bye-week methods back in 2003 with the Cowboys heading into the bye at 1-1 - yes, Week 3 - and the staggered schedule appearing to be a purposeful deterrent to players leaving town, Parcells snapped, "You take it how you want to. Why do I do it? Did you read about Joey Porter? That's why I do it."
Yes, everyone had read about Joey Porter. The then-Pittsburgh linebacker had returned to his old alma mater during an off-weekend following the final preseason game that summer to attend the Colorado vs. Colorado State game, and while in Denver was shot in the buttocks in a drive-by shooting attack that killed one person and injured four others.
There indeed was a method to Parcells' madness.
Now there is legislation to counter such logical, but considered controlling, old-school thinking if any head coach had the inclination.
The new CBA mandates the Cowboys players have those four consecutive off days this week, and Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett had decided heading into this past Sunday's game against Detroit at Cowboys Stadium that the players would be off Thursday through Sunday, with everyone scheduled to return to The Ranch on Monday, Oct. 10, to begin preparation for the Oct. 16 game at New England.
"It's huge to have those days," says Cowboys ninth-year linebacker Bradie James. "You just got to get away and recoup. Some guys would have you practice one day, be off the next, practice the next day, off the next. But like this, now we know."
In fact, those some-guy coaches around The Ranch all handled the bye week a little bit differently ever since the NFL instituted the bye during the 1990 season, then experimented with two byes during the 1993 season, going back to just one ever since. First up was Jimmy Johnson, and the Cowboys' first bye didn't arrive until Week 14, interrupting a three-game winning streak which turned into four two weeks later during that 7-9 season.
Johnson routinely gave the team the weekend off. Two days. That was it. Barry Switzer followed with the same routine. Chan Gailey was a tad more compassionate. He would give the players three days off (Friday-Sunday).
Dave Campo followed suit, three days off, Friday through Sunday, as did Wade Phillips.
But Bill was a different story, and guessing because of coaches like Parcells, the Players Association demanded conformity in the new CBA when dealing with the bye week. Speaking of guessing, that's what Parcells kept the players doing - guessing if they would have a day off or not, and if they did when those would come. That 2003 season, Parcells tried to insure his players didn't leave town - or if they did, not for long - by practicing on Saturday, and not telling them if they had Sunday and/or Monday off until Saturday's practice was completed.
He did give them Sunday and Monday off, but even that small reprieve came with a message: Don't go anywhere.
"He said, 'Don't go out of town,'" running back Aveion Cason said at the time. "Don't leave town."
Even if the players didn't heed his advice, any such trip would be an expensive one. Ever try booking airfare the day before going somewhere? Ouch!
But those now are days gone by. So is any such message.
That is something with which Garrett must deal, and he likely looks at these days off a little differently now as a head coach than he did during his playing days. No coach likes to lose touch with his players in the middle of the season. But there also is another decision: How to practice not only during the bye, which the Cowboys were planning to do Tuesday and Wednesday, but also when the players return on the 10th?
"We'll probably get back into our normal routine, based on how our roster is at that time," Garrett said prior to the Detroit game of using a couple of the allowed pad practices they did not during the short week following the Monday night game. "We'll try to accommodate the schedule and also the injuries we've had over the past couple of weeks and maybe have different kinds of practices than we normally would have."
And that's certainly possible with the four consecutive days off the Cowboys players were expected to enjoy the end of this week, an important aspect for the NFLPA while negotiating the new CBA this summer.
"This allows us to totally get away, and come back refreshed," says Cowboys tight end Jason Witten, also the team's player-rep. "Just to get a consistent four days off. We wanted that clear with the language (in the CBA). That was a focal point of it."
So now, no matter who the head coach is, and no matter if the record is 3-1 or 2-2 following Sunday's Detroit game, the Cowboys will get their four consecutive days off and report back to work on Monday.
After all, rules are rules.
Bye the Numbers
- Over the last 17 seasons, ever since 1994 when the NFL consistently played a 16-game schedule over 17 weeks with just one bye included, the Cowboys have posted a 98-89 record after the bye, which has landed anywhere from the third week of the season (three times) to the 10th week of the season (twice).
- Only three times have the Cowboys gone into the bye with a winning record and finished with a losing mark over the remaining games following the bye. That would have taken place in 1997, the Cowboys 2-1 going into the bye and then 4-9 over the final 13 games after the bye; again in 1999, starting off 2-0 going into the bye, then, after losing Michael Irvin for the season - and his career - in Game 4, ending up 6-8 in the final 14 games of Gailey's coaching career with the Cowboys after the bye; and the third in 2004, the Cowboys 2-1 heading into the bye and 4-9 afterward.
- The opposite has occurred only once, the Cowboys in 1996 only 2-3 in those first five games with Irvin serving his five-game suspension for conduct detrimental to the league and then going 8-3 after the bye.
- Two other times the Cowboys were no more than a .500 team heading into the bye, both times just 1-1, yet went 9-5 over the final 14 games in 2003 and then 8-6 after the 2006 bye.
- The Cowboys are 6-2 over the past eight games after the bye.
- In the 22 games immediately following all byes, including the two spliced into the 1993 season, the Cowboys own a 15-7 record.