With the Cowboys dress rehearsal game this Saturday against the Bengals, its time for players to really shine and earn their stars for the 2013 season. This year’s rookie class is shaping up to be one of the Cowboys better draft classes under Garrett. We’ve already seen center Travis Frederick take a stranglehold on his spot, and he’s only going to improve and lead this offensive line. You have to like what we’ve seen in LB Devonte Holloman, he’s going to unseat one of the starting linebackers, and I’m not talking about Carter or Lee. WR Terrance Williams will be a contributor and is already penciled in as the #3 WR, and he could move up once Austin gets his yearly injury, and we may never look back once that happens. Safety, JJ Wilcox sure looks like he’s going to be a player for us, and contribute as well. The rest of the class has potential and will likely contribute as well – its looking good.
Conversely, the same cannot be made about last year’s 2012 draft class. Its said that it takes 3 years to know what you have in a draft class; but in our case, I think we know what we have with this batch of players and its not good at all. Outside of Morris Claiborne, this class is very close to teetering off the edge into bustville in the likes of the 2009 class. I’d even venture to say Claiborne isn’t the most durable player either, c’mon man!
Every single one of these guys have had some sort of habitual injury, and some of them are in serious risk of making the team, maybe even the practice squad.
Tyrone Crawford was a question mark coming into the season, and he blew out his achilles. Done.
Kyle Wilber will be a backup for us, nothing spectacular.
Matt Johnson can’t get on the field and he could very well get cut, and may not even be brought back for the practice squad. For this reason, the Cowboys drafted JJ Wilcox, and he’s making his strides to get some playing time and eventually start for us. Monte is very high on Wilcox and his physicality.
Danny Coale is in the same boat as Johnson. Coale has been mired with injuries and time is about to run out for him. He needs to get on the field and have two amazing preseason games, and by the way he’s looked in camp and in the preseason, that’s not happening. Maybe a practice squad guy.
James Hannah will make the team, but he’s had some setbacks, he needs to get back into that end of the 2012 season mode and go beast mode on people.
Caleb McSurdy is another player teetering on the roster, he’s done an ok job in the preseason, but there are some solid backups in front of him, he may be cutting it close to make the team.
With the Cowboys so desperate to fill some voids with youth and durable players, this class is missing the mark big time. There’s potential that half the class or more could be gone after only one year – scary!
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