Cowboys Country

Are Jerry Jones' Dallas Cowboys Sleepwalking Through NFL Scouting Combine?

Dallas Cowboys targets at NFL's overrated Scouting Combine, Luka Doncic's Dallas Mavericks fountain of youth, Texas Rangers' tattooed memory and stumbling over Leap Day, all in this week's DFW sports notebook.

Richie Whitt

In this story:

WHITT'S END 3.1.24:

Whether you’re at the end of your coffee, your day, your week or even your rope, welcome to Whitt’s End …

*We’re either dumb, desensitized or just downright disgusted. How else do we explain letting the 35th anniversary of Jerry Jones buying the Dallas Cowboys pass last week without as much as a lifted eyebrow or one of those sad Kazoos?

Feb. 25, 1989 is one of the seminal moments in the history of DFW sports, but this year it slipped by as merely “Sunday.” Just like that, we totally ignore the day Saint Tom Landry was fired? The episode ended a 29-year, Hall-of-Fame career by one of the greatest coaches in the history of organized sports.

Shame on us (me).

Kind of like in Dallas how we expected JFK’s assassination to prompt an annual day of observance – if not mourning – but now Nov. 22 is just another day with a white “X” in the middle of Elm Street.

*Everyone “meets” with everybody. The top prospects do nothing. And we all pretend to know precisely how an eye-popping cone drill will translate into making tackles.

Welcome to the NFL Scouting Combine, the weirdly wonderful job fair where old men with stopwatches analyze young men in underwear. ... a place deemed so unimportant that some head coaches - including the Rams' Sean McVay, the 49ers' Kyle Shanahan and Dallas' own Mike McCarthy - don't even bother going.

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And I get why.

It’s employers interviewing and evaluating prospective employees … out of their habitat. Judging NFL players sans helmets and pads would be like a Video Game Team Manager evaluating a gamer not on how fast or accurate they played games, but merely by how flexible their wrists are. It’s players displaying talents needed to play the game of football, without actually playing the game of football. Like pilots flying in a simulator, or a fashion designer merely spitball-sketching in pencil.

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During Thursday’s timed 40-yard dashes, players wore tank tops, short shorts, track spikes and started in a runner’s stance. Ya know, exactly nothing like real football.

It’s science, but intentionally not an exact science.

Partially because of his underwhelming Combine in 2000, Tom Brady slipped to the sixth round. Tony Romo went undrafted. And then there’s the time-tested example of Tony Mandarich.

In 1989 the Michigan State behemoth put on the greatest workout show in the event’s history. At 6-foot-6 and 325 pounds, he ran a 40-yard dash (4.65) faster than Jerry Rice and Emmitt Smith. He bench-pressed 225 pounds a whopping 39 times, broad-jumped over 10 feet and his vertical leap topped 30 inches.

He was a Terminator, a perfect physical specimen seemingly genetically engineered to dominate his position for a decade. After watching his Combine workout, Sports Illustrated proclaimed him the “Greatest Offensive Lineman Prospect Ever” and draft guru Mel Kiper suggested the Cowboys would “rue the day” if they passed on Mandarich with the No. 1 overall pick.

As you know, the Cowboys picked a guy named Troy Aikman and won three Super Bowls. With the second pick the Packers selected Mandarich, who was cut within three years and started only 47 games in a wholly underwhelming six-year NFL career.

Moral to the story: There is no direct correlation between excelling at the NFL Scouting Combine and playing NFL football. Let me know if any of these all-time Scouting Combine record-holders rings a bell: Donald Washington (vertical jump), Byron Jones (broad jump), Jeff Maehl (3-cone drill), Jason Allen (20-yard shuttle), Brandin Cooks (60-yard shuttle), John Ross (40-yard dash) or Stephen Paea (bench press).

Jones and Cooks crafted decent careers in Dallas, but …

The NFL Scouting Combine isn’t the most overrated event in sports, but it’s on my short list: 10. Tour de France; 9. Army-Navy; 8. Indianapolis 500; 7. Kentucky Derby; 6. Any Heavyweight Boxing Championship Fight; 5. College Basketball Post-Season Conference Tournaments; 4. Winter Olympics; 3. NFL Scouting Combine; 2. Opening Day; 1. Heisman Trophy.

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But hey, at least Jerry Jones is at the combine, meeting with the agents for Dak Prescott, Micah Parsons and CeeDee Lamb, right? Right?

Oh. Nevermind.

*I know the stakes were considerably lower, but the Dallas Mavericks losing Tuesday night in Cleveland on that buzzer-beating, 60-foot NBA Shot of the Year injected the same heartbreak as Dwight Clark’s “The Catch” and the Texas Rangers’ Game 6 of the 2011 World Series. Stunned. Silence.

*Happened upon a Rangers Spring Training game this week and there was Josh Sborz on the mound. Under slightly less stressful circumstances, the pitcher was back at his craft just 120 days after recording the final seven outs of the Rangers’ World Series Game 5 clincher in Arizona. Despite his historical heroics, Sborz isn’t exactly a household name or recognizable face. Says he’s only stopped for an autograph about 4-5 times all offseason around DFW.

*I’ve had good dogs. I know lots of good people that love dogs. But I’ve come to this conclusion: Those who are obsessed with dogs are either unable or unwilling to make human relationships work. It’s the easy route to companionship. In a related story … no, this is not okay.

*Cowboys’ rookie kicker Brandon Aubrey led the NFL in both number of touchbacks (99) and highest percentage of touchbacks (91) last season. But because kickoffs have become as boring as intentional walks in baseball, his leg strength might be diminished this season if a new NFL rule proposal passes.

*Hot.

*Not.

Cowboys - Jerry Jones Tom Landry

*Goodbye, Leighton Vander Esch. Hello … Shaquille Barrett?

*So, if I’m understanding correctly, without a Feb. 29 “Leap Day” every once in a while we’d eventually be celebrating Christmas during 100-degree “Summer” heat and watching Fourth of July fireworks wearing “Winter” coats. Has to do with our orbit around the Sun not actually taking 365 days, but rather 365 days, five hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds. Fortunately, we don’t have to worry about this math again until 2028.

*Trying to decide which is crazier: That this week a person claimed to be hypnotized by Mark Cuban or that this week Luka Doncic had a birthday and is still only 25.

*I’m feeling my inner Larry David these days. Though few things anger me, most things bother me.

From waiting on the pickup driver to take three attempts to back into his parking spot, to being forced to bag my own groceries, to people loudly yapping into their cell phone with the device held in front of their mouth instead of up to their ear, I feel like I’m trapped in an eternal episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

But at the gym this week I was not wrong to be puzzled, and accordingly pissed.

I’m doing a workout that involves running on the treadmill alternated with exercises off it. After a set of running, I keep the treadmill’s timer on to track my overall progress. To secure my spot, I drape a sweaty towel over the display/keyboard and leave my water bottle in the cup holder.

But, lo and behold, I returned to my treadmill to find a man walking on it and my towel/water bottle moved to the next one over. Mind you, there are approximately 50 treadmills in the gym and at this time of day in mid-afternoon less than 10 were being used.

“Excuse me, why did you move my stuff?” I inquire.

His response: “You weren’t here. I didn’t think anyone was using it.”

Thankfully, I can’t duplicate the mental gymnastics this man had to go through to come to that confounding conclusion. I tend to think he was just an entitled jerk used to doing what he wants, when he wants. But part of me hopes he was mentally challenged.

Cue the theme.

*Speaking of NFL rules changes, I’ve been calling for this for at least 10 years. It’s embarrassing that a multi-billion dollar business still uses archaic, imprecise chains to measure key plays in its games. Technology might finally be teaming with common sense to bring football out of the stone ages.

*There are “homers.” And then there is Ticket radio host Sean Bass, who got the box score from the Rangers’ Game 5 World Series clincher tattooed on his back. Respect.

*As an acknowledgement/apology for last week’s network outage, AT&T is giving me a credit on my next bill. A whopping $5. They’re using that amount because it’s the “average cost of a full day of service.” Oh, is that so? In that case let’s lock my bill in at $150 per month and call it a day. Thanks!

*NFL top TV announcing teams feature former Cowboys in Troy Aikman (ESPN) and Tony Romo (CBS). The new No. 1 NBA trio at ABC is adding short-time Mav J.J. Redick. Now that the Rangers are champs, how long before we get a Texas ex finds his way into a broadcast booth? Grudgingly, I guess we have to count Fox analyst Alex Rodriguez as one of “ours”?

*Be careful out there. Fists be flying, on the North Dallas Tollway and even at the QT on Belt Line in Irving. If folks can afford $400 for Donald Trump gold sneakers, can things really be so dire?

*With the epidemic of boorish fan behavior lately, it feels like we’re on the cusp of a revolution of guidelines or perhaps even restrictions.

At the recent PGA Tour event in Phoenix, drunk fans jumped the ropes and made “snow angels” in sand traps during play. The Texas-Texas Tech basketball game was interrupted this week as fans hurled bottles onto the court. A Duke star was injured during a “court storm” at Wake Forest. A Dallas Stars’ playoff game was similarly paused last Spring as fans littered the ice with trash.

And last week Kevin Durant got into it courtside with a disgusting Mavs fan.

The price of a ticket doesn’t entitle and/or excuse indecent behavior. This keeps up and we’ll go back to COVID-era rules with fans forced to only watch on TV while players perform in empty stadiums.

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*In a sorta-related story to Leap Day … I can comprehend how the swallows return to San Juan Capistrano at basically the same time every year, because they can communicate. What I can’t grasp is how in North Texas all of our trees suddenly decide to bloom. Synchronized. Simultaneously. Overnight. After weeks of dead, bare branches, we got up one morning this week after a couple of 90-degrees days and – voila – blossoms! How exactly do they coordinate such a marvelous maneuver? My best guess: Tree-mail.

*This Weekend? Once it warms back up Sunday, let’s play some tennis. Otherwise, March arriving like a lamb. Yawn. As always, don’t be a stranger.

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Richie Whitt
RICHIE WHITT

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