COWBOYS NOTES: Owens gets another practice off to stay fresh
Terrell Owens said when he played with the San Francisco 49ers, his coaches used to call him a thoroughbred, which, if that’s the case, the Cowboys’ lead receiving horse isn’t being treated as if he’s a workhorse.
On Monday morning, Owens was given his second consecutive practice off before he returned to the second session in the afternoon. This is all part of the process of keeping Owens, who will be 35 in December, out of harm’s way.
"Even the first day [Cowboys coach Wade Phillips] gave us half-speed type of deals, I was going full speed,"
Owens said. "[Cowboys offensive coordinator] Jason Garrett had to tell me to slow down, and even Tony Romo was like, 'Yo, dude, it’s half speed.’"
This was and remains a dramatic difference between the days under former Cowboys coach Bill Parcells and Phillips. Parcells believed in practice, period. Phillips tends to err on the side of caution, especially with veterans who don’t necessarily need the reps the way a younger player does.
Expect the Cowboys to take every precaution with Owens, who has missed time at the end of four of the past six seasons with injuries.
"You have to watch older players and see where they are,"
Phillips said. "It’s hard to say whether we’ll do more or less. We watched him last year and I thought he was strong throughout the season until he got hurt there at the end."
Said Owens: "It’s just like racing horses; you can’t run them every day and expect them go out there on race day and perform at their best. The same with cars; you run them at a certain point, then you put them in the shop and go through the diagnostics. That’s what I’m going through right now."
Fight Knocks
It took a while, but the Cowboys had their first real skirmish of training camp. As expected, right tackle Marc Colombo was in the middle, too.
During the second session Monday, Colombo and rookie linebacker Tearrius George exchanged quick punches before the altercation was halted. For some reason, George took his helmet off, normally a no-no in a fight.
"What are you thinking taking your helmet off?"
defensive lineman Chris Canty asked rhetorically on the sideline after the fight.
Reverse thoughts
The Cowboys’ offense didn’t run too many gadget plays last season, and Jason Garrett doesn’t think you can get too cute too often. But the Cowboys have been practicing reverses aplenty in training camp as well as a few other "trick"
plays.
That doesn’t mean the Cowboys plan to use a gadget play per game, but they have spent time during training camp trying reverses to Isaiah Stanback, Terrell Owens and other "gadget"
plays.
"There are only so many things you can do, and those kinds of things keep a defense off balance,"
Garrett said. "If you want to attack defenses, the players get a kick out of them, and if you think the play is ready for prime time, that’s when you call them. You don’t want to base your offense around them."
