American Football: Dallas Cowboys 2003

Who should the Cowboys select with the No. 5 pick?

There is some talk of them taking Kansas St CB Terence Newman or Marshall QB Byron Leftwich. I think they should gamble and take Leftwich, he's a big kid and has quite an arm.

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[Edited on 8-1-2004 by ProudAmerican]

its a hard decision to make with that 5 spot, a lot of it depends on what the teams above the Cowboys pick. But i wouldn't expect them to pick another quaterback, they have two solid young guns right now that just need some time to develop. I would look for them to take a WR or somebody to help improve their defense. They have a very young team and if they can pick up a couple of people in the draft that would help them they could be an impact team this year. But they definatly need a good Wide Receiver they had some problems in that area last year.

They did have WR problems last year, Joey Galloway was pretty good, but Rocket Ismail was injured all year. I'm not too crazy about the two young QB's on the Cowboys, I'd like to see them draft one.

cowboys are good but i th8ink they need a cople more years you know 1 or 2 at least

Originally posted by ProudAmerican
Who should the Cowboys select with the No. 5 pick?

There is some talk of them taking Kansas St CB Terence Newman or Marshall QB Byron Leftwich. I think they should gamble and take Leftwich, he's a big kid and has quite an arm.

I kind of disagree, Proud. I'd go with the cornerback.

Other than Carson Palmer, I don't really like these other quarterbacks in this draft like Leftwich, Boller, Brad Banks, etc. These guys aren't sure things.


[Edited on 04/10/03 by Frank]

Originally posted by Frank
I kind of disagree, Proud. I'd go with the cornerback.

I know what you're saying, I'm just not real excited with the two quarterbacks they have heading into this season. Newman would fit nicely into their secondary with Darren Woodson, and the two guys they drafted last year, Roy Williams and Derek Ross.

I heard a couple rumors today that the Lions might pass up Charles Rogers at #2 and snatch Newman there. They wanted a corner last year and passed up on Quentin Jammer, so who knows? Should be a good draft.

Originally posted by ProudAmerican:

I know what you're saying, I'm just not real excited with the two quarterbacks they have heading into this season.

Well I have no faith in Quincy Carter at all but I'm still willing to give Chad Hutchinson a chance. From the times, I've seen him, he looks like he has a really tough mental mindset to be able to stand in the pocket and take hits, knowing that the offensive line is horrible.

The Cowboys did end up getting Terence Newman at #5, he really rounds out a good secondary in Dallas.

Terence Newman is a sold pick, and then they picked up Mike Doss from OSU, who is another solid pick now the Cowboys have a very solid secondary, with Williams at Saftey, and two great freshman should be a good season.

"I'm going with the guy that can get this team in the end zone. That's the way I judge them. If they can get it in there, I like them. If they can't, I don't like them."

-- Coach Bill Parcells, in the Dallas Morning News, on the starting quarterback job being up for grabs between Chad Hutchinson, Quincy Carter, Tony Romo, Clint Stoerner or Woodrow Dantzler

Originally posted by ProudAmerican:

Chad Hutchinson, Quincy Carter, Tony Romo, Clint Stoerner or Woodrow Dantzler

I'm looking at these 5 QB's we have here and thinking, "Oh boy "

For anyone who has been wondering whether the Cowboys will add a quarterback via free agency, think again. With eight weeks remaining before training camp, nothing has changed in terms of Bill Parcells' position. The head coach says the Cowboys will stick with what they have, namely Chad Hutchinson and Quincy Carter. "If I thought there was someone there who was, first of all, economically feasible, and second of all, could get us to a division championship, then I'd be interested in the guy," Parcells said of the QBs currently available on the market. "I haven't seen a guy that I've just said, 'This guy is surely that guy.'"

The Cowboys obviously liked what they saw last week in Dallas Desperados rookie standout Will Pettis' workout, signing the two-way Arena Football League player Tuesday to a one-year contract worth the NFL minimum ($225,000) with no signing bonus.

But there is a catch. The waiting game now begins for the Cowboys and the wide receiver, whose rights will not be officially awarded to the Cowboys until he clears waivers over the next 10 days.

A newly-instated NFL rule requires teams owning AFL franchises (Cowboys, Lions and Broncos) wishing to sign players from their AFL franchise to place the player on procedural recall waivers, exposing the player to the other 31 teams in the league for 10 days. If any of the other 31 teams puts a claim in on the player during that 10-day period, the team highest on the waiver list is awarded the player. If no team claims the player, then the player's rights reverts to the signing team.

So the Cowboys now must wait until June 20 to see if Pettis will be joining the Cowboys in San Antonio for training camp.

Pettis became the only rookie to earn All-Arena League (second-team) honors and finished second in the Rookie of the Year voting.

His speed and quickness set him apart in the AFL, and the Cowboys are hoping he can use those assets on the big field as well.

I think the Cowboys will surprise alot of people this season.

Parcells is a winner, and it's contagious.

I'm going with Carter all the way, for the last 2 years the cowboys offensive line has been riddeled with injuries and Emmit Smith, as great as I think he is, wasn't pulling just because of that and they knew Carter was getting most of the snaps anyway. Carter played a bad game against the cardinals last year, but I think he should have the chance to redeme himself this year.

DALLAS -- Dallas Cowboys backup safety Keith Davis, shot twice in a topless club's parking lot, was readmitted to a hospital for his wounds, his agent says.

Agent Byron Boston said he talked to the player on Monday. Davis, who was treated and released from Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas on Sunday, was readmitted the next day to a hospital in Irving, citing pain from wounds on his left hip and right arm.

But Boston said doctors are optimistic that Davis will be ready for training camp, which starts in San Antonio on July 26. Davis, too, said he expects to be ready.

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The Dallas Cowboys relied on a school with a rich tradition for offensive lineman, selecting Wisconsin centre Al Johnson with the 38th pick.

The 6-3 305-pound Johnson was a finalist for the Rimington Award, given to the nation's top centre.

Tex Schramm, the innovative showman who helped build the Dallas Cowboys into "America's Team" and was instrumental in the NFL's evolution and popularity, died Tuesday. He was 83.

Schramm's son-in-law, Greg Court, told The Associated Press that the former Cowboys president and general manager died at his Dallas home.

"The NFL family has lost one of its giants," NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said in a statement. "Tex Schramm was one of the visionary leaders in sports history -- a thinker, doer, innovator and winner with few equals."

Schramm hired Tom Landry as the Cowboys' first coach and was with the team for the first 29 seasons. He left in 1989, two months after Jerry Jones bought the club and fired Landry, and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame two years later.

Without playing a down, Schramm did as much as anyone to shape today's NFL.

"He played a major role in building the NFL into America's passion by developing a glamour franchise with national appeal and by his leadership on so many league issues," Tagliabue said.

Instant replay, sideline radios in quarterback helmets and starting the play clock immediately after the previous play were his ideas. So were wrinkles such as wide sideline borders and wind-direction strips dangling atop goalpost uprights.

He also promoted the six-division, wild-card playoff concept and introduced the world to the Cowboys cheerleaders. The nickname "America's Team" wasn't originally his, but he was the one who popularized it.

"Tex was the ultimate football-minded man," said Hall of Famer Bob Lilly the team's first draft pick. "He loved the game and he had a flair about him of show business."

But for 12 years, Schramm remained the Cowboys' only Hall of Famer not to be inducted into the club's Ring of Honor because of a strained relationship with Jones.

In April, Jones decided the man who created the Ring should be in it. Schramm, who brought the first 11 inductees to the Cowboys, was going to become the 12th member this fall.

"I never gave up hope," he said at a news conference announcing his selection, his eyes filling with tears. "Things that should happen to people that deserve them, usually do happen."

A strong personality with an imaginative football mind, Schramm had a protective love of the NFL.

Schramm was a significant force in the AFL-NFL merger in 1966 and was the original chairman of the league's competition committee, a position he held from 1966-88. His first committee members were Vince Lombardi, Paul Brown and Al Davis.

"He was a competitor and loved to argue, but he had a lot of class and you always knew he was trying to do what was best for the NFL," Gene Upshaw, executive director of the NFL Players' Association, said in statement.

Before being hired by Cowboys founder Clint Murchison in 1960 to run the expansion team, Schramm worked for the Los Angeles Rams from 1947-56. He worked his way up from publicity director to general manager, then became an executive for CBS-TV Sports.

While with the Rams, he gave eventual NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle his first job in the league -- as the team's publicity director.

With CBS, Schramm learned the intricacies of wedding football and television, a marriage that has brought the league billions of dollars. He orchestrated the first TV broadcast of the Winter Olympics, and hired Pat Summerall to broadcast New York Giants football games.

Schramm was 39 when Murchison, a prominent Texas oilman, hired him to start an expansion team that had yet to be approved by the NFL.

Among his first hires was Landry. Although opposite personalities, their "business relationship" -- as Schramm called it -- produced 20 straight winning seasons, 18 playoff appearances, 13 division titles and five Super Bowl appearances.

Dallas didn't win a game its first season, then when high hopes fizzled in 1963, there were rumblings that a coaching change was needed. Schramm got Landry a 10-year contract instead.

The Cowboys went on to win division titles in 1966 and '67, leading to memorable playoff losses to the Green Bay Packers, including the Ice Bowl. They finally won Super Bowls after the 1971 and 1977 seasons.

When the tide turned in the 1980s, owner Bum Bright wanted Landry fired. Schramm refused.

Schramm was with Jones when Landry was fired in February 1989, but two months later he announced his resignation at the same meeting during which the sale of the team was approved. A rift developed between Schramm and the Cowboys' new organization, until he dined with Jones in March.

Schramm's marketing genius helped turn the Cowboys into one of the world's most-recognized teams.

An early success was in 1966, when he volunteered to host a second NFL game on Thanksgiving Day. Dallas played Cleveland in the Cotton Bowl that Thursday, drawing the largest crowd in franchise history (80,259).

In 1972, Schramm decided to entertain fans with professional dancers rather than high school cheerleaders. The seven-member squad forever changed the sidelines.

Schramm also developed the largest radio network any sports team ever had. Cowboys games were broadcast on 225 stations in 19 states, plus a Spanish-speaking network with 16 stations in seven states and Mexico.

He also was highly involved in labor battles.

After the 1966 merger, Schramm was called upon to negotiate a settlement with the players' union. He wound up with a then-unprecedented four-year agreement.

When players went on strike in 1987, Schramm was one of the leading forces for using replacement players.

"Once the players saw the league could go on without them, that was the end of the strike," Schramm later said.

There hasn't been another strike in the NFL.

Schramm was born in San Gabriel, Calif., where he his football-playing days ended after high school. The 147-pound fullback opted for a journalism degree from the University of Texas and became a sports writer after a stint in the Air Force.

Originally posted by TeflonDon
Tex Schramm, the innovative showman who helped build the Dallas Cowboys into "America's Team" and was instrumental in the NFL's evolution and popularity, died Tuesday. He was 83.

Rest in peace Tex! He did so much to bring the Cowboys to the top from scratch in the 60's,70's and 80's.

The Cowboys could use a committee to fill Emmitt Smith's shoes.

It was with a profound and personal sense of loss, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones conceded over the weekend, that he stood on the sideline during the initial practice of training camp and didn't see the familiar No. 22 lined up at tailback.

That feeling of emptiness, though, figures to escalate even further if the Cowboys don't find a viable tailback, one able to at least approximate the 975 yards that Emmitt Smith posted during a 2002 season in which he had the second-lowest rushing total of his Hall of Fame career.

Dallas doesn't lack for candidates to step into those mighty big boots the NFL's career rushing leader left behind. But at this early juncture of the preseason, it doesn't appear that coach Bill Parcells is overly enamored with any of them, or that he is prepared to pencil in anyone as even the conditional starter.

And, of course, none of them figures to be, either. But from among a roster of candidates that includes Troy Hambrick, Michael Wiley and Aveion Cason, someone has to emerge as at least a serviceable tailback, and no one has yet stepped into the breach. Hambrick has been touted as the heir apparent, but didn't endear himself to Parcells during the offseason when he was overweight, or over the weekend when he didn't run hard enough to suit the new head coach.

Parcells emphasized Saturday that the tailback often sets the tone for aggressiveness, and that enemy defenses often perceive an offense based on how they view the toughness of the player lined up there. If a tailback runs soft, Parcells related, a defense senses that and views it as a sign of weakness.

"If a tailback dips his toe in the water, and it's colder than he thought and he pulls it back out, a defense likes that," Parcells said. "If you're on defense, you like those toe-dippers."

Good ole Bill is never short on quotes!

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