Cowboys Corner

Jerry Jones offers no opinion on 'simul-catch' -- he turned off the game at halftime

Jerry Jones went to sleep, apparently.

The Cowboys owner said on his 105.3 FM The Fan radio show Tuesday morning that he didn’t see the end of the game everyone is talking about right now.

The one the NFL is going to make a formal statement on.

He just “read a little note in the paper that the Seahawks pulled it out,” he said.

Well, it’s only the play that has shaken the earth under the NFL. But after saying for all of the offseason that the NFL will be fine with replacement officials so long as they call the game consistently and with the same quality for both teams, he had no opinion to offer on a potentially landmark call for his regularly scheduled show.

“I didn’t see the ending last night. I cut it off about halftime.”

But Jones knew that the Seahawks winning was good news for him. It showed the strength of the Seahawks, which made the Cowboys’ loss in Week 2 look better.

And for the NFL, he took the old Hollywood approach – there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

“We can have all kinds of what-ifs,” Jones said. “We’ve played three games and we’ve got 16 to play. It’s exciting. It gives us a lot to talk about on our shows that we have. But fundamentally, when I look at where the league is over the first three ballgames, it’s great. Lot of competition.”

Jones has another radio show on Friday morning, also on 105.3 The Fan.

-- Carlos Mendez

Twitter @calexmendez

It's a process -- Garrett describes how the Cowboys are thinking in safety search

Jason Garrett said the Cowboys have to keep a few things in mind as they look for a safety.

“I think the biggest thing is you have an idea of what you want, but then who’s available to fill those spots,” he said. “Obviously, you would like a guy who is game ready to play and knows our system that can play quickly and contribute quickly. But you’d also like a guy who is young and who can contribute on specials teams when the starter comes back. But often times it’s hard to check all those boxes off.”

Tuesday is a big workout day in the NFL week, and the Cowboys may bring a player or players in. They may also try to re-sign cornerback Mario Butler, who they released Saturday. He played some safety in training camp.

“We have to see who is available, and we’ll keep scouring that waiver wire,” Garrett said. “I think we’ve done a good job of that here the last couple of years of picking up guys who can come in and help us, so we will go through that same process and see who might fit.”

-- Carlos Mendez

Twitter @calexmendez

Garrett credits Ryan, Henderson for idea of Carr to safety, Carr for embracing it and making it work

Jason Garrett gave defensive coordinator Rob Ryan and secondary coach Jerome Henderson credit for finding a way to have Brandon Carr play safety and Mike Jenkins to play cornerback while also keeping Vincent Jackson in check.

The Cowboys needed a way to make up for the loss of safety Gerald Sensabaugh, and putting Carr at safety was one way to do that and also to open up snaps at cornerback for Jenkins, who had been working his way back from offseason shoulder surgery.

“I think it was a real good idea by Rob and by Jerome early on in the week to do that,” Garrett said. “I think it was a great job by Brandon Carr of embracing the idea, saying, ‘Hey, I can do this. Absolutely, I’m excited to do this. I haven’t played safety since high school.’ He was kind of champing at the bit to do it.

“The concerns we had in the discussion was, they have this big guy, Vincent Jackson, and we have this big corner, this is the best matchup, should we really do this? And I think the combination of him playing corner but also playing safety and getting Jenks out there was a good way to go, and I think everybody responded really well to it.”

Garrett said now that Carr has put in some time at safety, the Cowboys have developed a little versatility.

“It’s nice to have that option in your hip pocket,” he said. “If we get in trouble and don’t have other options, we can say, let’s go back and do that again. We obviously want him to play corner. That’s what we feel like he’s best at. But to be able to do that with a guy to absorb an injury, that’s a good thing to have in your hip pocket going forward.”

-- Carlos Mendez

Twitter @calexmendez

Garrett pleased with Cowboys' handling of Bucs on kneel down

Jason Garrett said the Cowboys did a good job of handling the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ aggressive tactics against the end-of-game kneel down.

“It’s a difficult play. Tony got knocked back. Ryan got knocked back,” Garrett said. “So I thought we did a good job of handling it, and we had to do it three times. We got out of it, so it worked out well for us.”

Garrett said the Cowboys prepared themselves for it during the week.

“We told the team during the week we’re hopeful we end up with this situation and they’re going to handle it this particular way,” Garrett said. “We have to be ready for it and be ready to play 60 minutes and if these are the last couple plays in the ballgame, this is what’s coming.”

-- Carlos Mendez

Twitter @calexmendez

Jenkins' play versus Bucs puts a smile on Garrett's face, leaves Scandrick happy for his friend

To coach Jason Garrett, it seemed cornerback Mike Jenkins was playing almost with a smile on his face Sunday against Tampa Bay. It was a sight he loved.

“I felt really, really good about how he played, and somebody asked about relentlessness in spirit – as much as anything else, that’s what I saw from Jenks yesterday,” Garrett said Monday at Valley Ranch. “He competed really well against some good receivers, competed during the down. You could just see him hustling. You could almost see him trying with a smile on his face, which is oftentimes when guys play their best.

“He really played very passionately. The love for the game was pretty clear to me. It was clear during the game, and it was clear when we watched it on the tape, and that’s a really good sign.”

Jenkins, who spent all of training camp recovering from offseason shoulder surgery, played a season-high 31 snaps on defense. He had a tackle and a pass defensed, a high breakup of a deep pass intended for Vincent Jackson in the third quarter.

“He hasn’t played a lot of football recently,” Garrett said. “He really did a great job for us last year fighting back through an injury and playing when he was hurt a lot. He did a good job of battling back and playing in a ballgame with not that much practice time.”

Jenkins benefitted from the move of Brandon Carr to safety, which freed up snaps at cornerback. Fellow corner Orlando Scandrick was not surprised to see the performance from one of his closest friends on the team.

“We knew all along this week what we were going to do. We knew what he could do,” Scandrick said. “He’d been practicing. They just wanted to work him back into it. He looked great. ... He’s a great player. He’s mentally tough. So happy for him.”

-- Carlos Mendez

Twitter @calexmendez

Garrett says Cowboys have no excuses for excessive pre-snap penalties, will seek corrections this week

The Dallas Cowboys’ offense snapped the ball 66 times in Sunday’s 16-10 escape against Tampa Bay and experienced negative results on 24 occasions.

The total includes turnovers, penalties and plays that resulted in lost yardage. But the biggest culprit was 13 penalties for 105 yards, including six false starts. Such numbers are way beyond the team’s area of acceptability for self-inflicted wounds, coach Jason Garrett said Monday.

 “Zero is the target area, obviously. And that’s what we have to get to,” Garrett said. “Ironically enough, we did a lot of good things on offense. But we did them from second-and-11, second-and-16, third-and-long. There were a lot of situations that made it very difficult to run our offense.”

First and foremost were the pre-snap penalties. Right tackle Doug Free had three of the six false starts. Tight end Jason Witten had two. The other was credited to left tackle Tyron Smith, his fifth in three games.

Garrett said lack of continuity in a rebuilt and injury-plagued offensive line has been a factor but is “not an excuse” for consistently playing behind the chains on offense. Asked about a potential fix before Monday’s game against Chicago, Garrett said: “You try … to simplify some of the conversation that is happening or clean up some of the conversation that is happing. We just have to correct it.”

Receiver Miles Austin said the onus is on players, not just coaches, to make the corrections.

“It’s tough to get a rhythm when you have a couple of penalties and you’re starting first-and-15, second-and-20, stuff like that,” Austin said. “We’re hopefully going to put a little bit more attention on that as players.”

_ Jimmy Burch

Garrett notes OL was "soft in the middle" at times against Bucs, talks about improvement areas for Doug Free

Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said the offensive line was “a little soft in the middle” at times in Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and that it affected Tony Romo.

“Tony was getting hit, and Tony was feeling that pressure in front of him,” Garrett said in Monday’s press conference at Valley Ranch. “I thought Tony did a good job of moving around, but also standing in there and making some throws with some people around him. Again, I’ll keep saying it – at times it was good, other times, it was too much penetration, and we’ve just got to continue to shore it up.”

Garrett said guards Mackenzy Bernadeau and Nate Livings, signed in free agency to provide a better base up the middle, have been up and down, but that’s everyone on the line of scrimmage.

Asked about the most veteran member of the line, Doug Free, and what he can do to improve in pass protection, Garrett said, “I think he needs to be firmer. There were times in the ballgame, the defensive end got into him and knocked him back. But there were other times he regained his anchor and sat in there and blocked him pretty well. Being consistent and not getting pushed back into the quarterback would be first and foremost. There were a couple of other things that came up that led to some pressures and some hurries on the quarterback, but that's across the board, I can go through every player on our team and pick out a lot of different things and what we try to do as coaches when they leave today is give them things to focus on.”

Garrett said center Phil Costa, who has been out with a bad back since the first series of the Giants game, might start working “in the next week or so.”

Garrett said injuries have affected the transition to new offensive line coach Bill Callahan.

“I think Bill’s done a great job,” Garrett said. “We've had some different kinds of combinations of guys playing from the middle of training camp on because of some injuries. We’ve had some new players, so it's going to take time for those guys to play next to each other and communicate to a level where they need to communicate.”

--- Carlos Mendez

Twitter @calexmendez

Garrett praises Jenkins for "relentless" effort against Tampa Bay

Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said cornerback Mike Jenkins displayed a “relentless spirit” against Tampa during his first game back from off-season shoulder surgery. Jenkins was credited with one tackle and one pass defended in Sunday's game while drawing considerable playing time with starter Brandon Carr shifted to safety because of injuries.

“You could see him hustling. You could almost see him trying with a smile on his face, which is often times when guys play their best,” Garrett said. “The love for the game was pretty clear to me.”

_ Jimmy Burch 

Cowboys rookie Matt Johnson also trying to recover from back injury, not just hamstrings, but could be ready in two weeks

The Cowboys could use some safety help right now, but it won’t come from Matt Johnson, who in addition to the hamstring problem that has slowed him down all year, also has a back injury.

“It happened as he was coming back with his hamstring,” coach Jason Garrett said Monday.

The new injury happened “a couple of three weeks” ago, Garrett said, but he expressed some confidence in a potential return for the rookie.

“We are hopeful he can get back here hopefully in the next couple of weeks,” Garrett said. “His rehab is going better. He’s moving around better. But again, we don’t want to rush him back and have another setback. Hopefully, he can be a factor in this discussion here in the next couple of weeks.”

Johnson was the second of the Cowboys’ two fourth-round picks in April. The Cowboys liked the 17 interceptions he made at Eastern Washington, and he made the 53-man roster despite practicing only three times in pads and playing in one preseason game.

A hamstring injury held him out most of training camp, and he hurt the other hamstring in the preseason game.

On top of that, he missed all but one practice in the OTA and veteran minicamp because his school was still in session (NFL rules do not allow draft picks to practice until after graduation).

-- Carlos Mendez

Twitter @calexmendez

Witten says he's not guaranteed more chances to make plays if he can't catch the passes he gets now

Tight end Jason Witten said he has nothing to blame for his poor play lately except himself.

And that he will get it turned around.

And that he knows that if he doesn’t, he’s not guaranteed a place in the offense.

“You don’t just get built in to get those throws next week and next time because of what that number is on the back of the jersey,” he said Monday in a long talk with reporters at Valley Ranch. “It’s a show-me game. I’ve got to show it and prove it just like every other player. That’s what I’m going to do.”

Witten, who didn’t do media interviews after Sunday’s game against Tampa Bay – in which he dropped two passes, committed two false-start penalties and was beaten in pass protection for a sack of Tony Romo – talked to reporters at his locker for more than 12 minutes, about twice as long as on a typical day after a game.

But this was not a typical game for Witten, or a typical time for him.

“I think every player, regardless of the sport, they go through adversity at some point. Obviously this is it for me,” Witten said. “It’s a point in your career, everything’s going to be asked – is he slowing down, is he not being able to handle it, all that stuff. In my mind, it’s ridiculous.”

Witten said the spleen injury that kept him out of preseason is healed. He said he is not hurt. He said he is not hearing footsteps. He said he is getting and has gotten plenty of practice.

He says he’s just not making the play.

“I wish there was a way I could say I wasn’t feeling good or I’m pressing or anything like that. It’s not that,” he said. “That would be the easy way to really get out of it, but bottom line is, you’ve got to get it fixed. Unacceptable.”

Witten has dropped six passes in the last two games. He dropped a tipped pass after sliding down for it, and he couldn’t hold on to a long pass down the middle of the field with no one around him.

Last week in Seattle, he dropped the same kind of seam pass.

“Plays you make your whole career. ... Crushes me that I didn’t,” he said. "You’ve got a chance to make some big plays, two that are probably 40-plus catches. A lot of tight ends go their whole career without getting 40-plus catches, you’ve got two back-to-back weeks. Trust me, it hurts when you don’t make those plays."

Witten went into Sunday's game promising to make up for the previous game. Instead, he created more questions about what’s wrong with one of the franchise’s most dependable players ever.

“I thought I handled that last week and fixed it and addressed it. Obviously, I didn’t do a good enough job,” he said. “You’ve got to go in there on Sunday knowing that the work’s been put in. You can’t second guess yourself. You can’t press. And that’s what I’ll do and do it tirelessly until it gets fixed.”

Coach Jason Garrett acknowledged Witten’s problems, but he said he still has confidence in his seven-time Pro Bowl tight end.

“He has dropped the football the last couple of weeks in a way we have never seen him do that,” he said. “We believe a lot in the body of work. You can say that game or the last couple of games, boy is he a different player. I'd like to believe he is the guy who has been playing on this team the last 10 years.”

Witten said his teammates have been supportive, but he understands if they – and particularly quarterback Tony Romo – wonder if he’s ok.

“I’m sure he’s wondering what’s wrong,” Witten said. “At the end of the day, those are big plays for him, big plays for our offense, especially when you’re struggling. Nah, they’ve all been positive, good teammates. Obviously, I’m sure they’re concerned, and rightfully so. But ultimately you’ve got to find a way to get it done.”

Witten said the big hit he took on a catch in Seattle, and the potential for other big hits, is not on his mind.

“Hey, look, every catch you make at tight end, you’re expecting to get hit,” he said. “Trust me, I’ve never heard footsteps, never worried about that. To be honest with you, there’s not even a guy in my vision on either of those throws the last two weeks. Look, I’ve analyzed it and overanalyzed it, just like you guys are trying to. It’s nothing more than just, I didn’t make the catch when I had the opportunity to.”

Witten said he thinks the first drop Sunday was tipped, but he said the long seam throw was perfect.

“Tony did a great job putting it right in front of me,” he said. “Just got to come down with it. It’s plays you make your whole career. Happen every week in this league. Got to find a way to get it done. Crushes me that I didn’t.”

He added, “Not all of them are perfect opportunities where it’s just between the 8 and the 2, and you catch it and you go on. But plays I expect to make, plays that you see week in and week out in the NFL, and I haven’t made them over the last two weeks. I take full responsibility for it, and rest assured that I’m going to get it fixed.”

Criticism is rare for Witten, and although he said he deserves it, he is determined to block it out as he tries to get himself right. 

“I understand that I don’t play to get respect from you guys or play to get criticized,” he said. “I know that that’s going to come. You’ve got a job to do just like everybody else. ... To be honest with you, you’ve got to eliminate that noise. You can’t worry about that. It should come. It should come. My play has not been good enough. I’ll take it head on.”

-- Carlos Mendez

Twitter @calexmendez