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Friday, March 7, 1997

Jones changing Cowboys' training camp plans

By Jean-Jacques Taylor

The Dallas Morning News

(KRT)

DALLAS - Two months ago, owner Jerry Jones vowed to make some changes after the Dallas Cowboys completed their worst season in six years.

The process has started.

Jones said Wednesday the Cowboys will extend training camp by a week and won't play an international game for the first time in six seasons.

The Cowboys spent four weeks in Austin last summer before returning to Dallas for two weeks of practice before the season began. This year, the Cowboys probably won't return to Dallas until a week before the first regular-season game.

"I think this is a good year to spend more time focusing on teamwork," Jones said. "We're going to extend our time in Austin by another four or five days. We're going to have longer practices and spend more time working as a team and working on fundamentals. Hopefully, that will give us a real focused training camp."

The Cowboys went 10-6 last season, their worst season since 1990 when they went 7-9 and missed the playoffs.

Carolina beat Dallas, 26-17, in a divisional playoff game as the Cowboys failed to participate in the NFC Championship Game for the first time in five seasons.

Dallas, playing without suspended receiver Michael Irvin for the first five games, started the season 2-3. It managed to win a record fifth consecutive NFC East championship but struggled all season.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the league recently called Jones to see if Dallas wanted to be considered for an international game that probably would be played in Mexico, where the Cowboys have a large fan base.

The NFL usually asks all playoff-caliber teams if they want to be considered for one of the league's international showcase games.

"Jerry (Jones) said he didn't want to play this year," Aiello said. "He said he wanted to stay home and take care of business."

In the past five years, Dallas has played in London, Tokyo, Toronto and twice in Mexico.

It's time to take a break, Jones said.

"We won three Super Bowls playing five pre-season games, but I think for this year we need to think more about focusing on the team," Jones said. "We've played in more international games than anybody. It's quite an honor to play in them, but this is a good time to let someone else do it so we can spend more time in training camp."

(c) 1997, The Dallas Morning News.

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