Wednesday, August 14, 1996

The Cowboys wish they had some "middle class"
By LANCE FLEMING
Reporter OnLine
(August 14, 1996)

IRVING - Larry Lacewelll might have said it best when he said the Dallas Cowboys are like some countries: There is no middle class.

The Cowboys' director of college and pro scouting was talking in training camp about how the salary cap has robbed the team of the ability to sign mid-range salaried players to provide depth.
Instead, the Cowboys are made up of multi-millionaire superstars and players playing for the league minimum.

While that theory of paying players hasn't hurt the team's ability to win Super Bowls, it has stripped it of valuable players who play special teams.

And that's the Cowboys' biggest weakness right now.

No longer can the club rely on veteran special teams performers like Joe Fishback, Matt Vanderbeek and Kenny Gant. They moved on to other teams when the Cowboys could no longer afford to pay them higher salaries.

So instead they Cowboys are trying to replace them with the likes of Kendricke Bullard, Wendell Davis, Reggie Reser, Errick Herrin and Alan Campos.

And right now those players aren't getting the job done. Of course, the way the entire ballclub has played in three preseason games, those guys aren't alone in that assessment.

But right now, the Cowboys' special teams are playing at such a poor level that even the normally media-friendly Bill Bates didn't hang around very long Monday night to talk about the situation. And when Bates, long the Cowboys' Mr. Special Teams, doesn't want to talk, you know it's bad.

The special teams were absolutely terrible Monday in the 31-7 preseason loss to New England.

Dallas had seven mistakes on special teams Monday night, including a pair of missed field goals by the usually reliable Chris Boniol.

One of the poor plays by the special teams resulted in a 96-yard kickoff return by Hason Graham to open the second half of the game. That made the score 17-0 in favor of the Patriots.

The Cowboys also allowed Graham to return a punt 35 yards in the first half, and that was after Billy Davis was offsides on a previous Dallas punt.

Campos committed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the first half when he speared a New England punt returner, leading Dallas All-Pro safety Darren Woodson to grab him by the shoulder pads on the way off the field and counsel the rookie on his mistake. Most of the Cowboy special teams players needed some counseling for their play Monday night.

Add to those mistakes a roughing-the-punter penalty on Herrin in the first quarter and it made for a long night for Dallas special teams coach Joe Avezzano.

"We didn't get bleep done, and let me bleep that for you," he said after Monday's game. "We have good kickers, and they didn't kick very well. When we covered, we didn't cover very well. We played all the young guys we had to see if they could cover and tackle."

But Avezzano was most disappointed by the mental mistakes his team made, in particular the roughing penalty.

"The run-in was a terrible play," he said. "It didn't cost us any points because they missed a field goal, but we made the defense play an extra five or six minutes."

However, even Avezzano knows he won't be getting a lot of help from veterans who fall into the middle class in terms of salaries.

"If people want the best special teams players, it means we won't have Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith, Jay Novacek, Michael Irvin, Charles Haley, Deion Sanders, Tony Tolbert and Darren Woodson," Avezzano said. "And believe me, I want those guys on our team.

"The thing is, everybody keeps saying that it's just preseason, but they keep score for those, too," he said. "We're just going to have start getting it done with a lot of guys who aren't quite ready to get the job done."

They better start getting ready, like right now.

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