Training camps around the NFL have begun, and there has been early news coming out of each of the other three NFC East camps. The Cowboys lost an early defensive approach, the Giants ran rounds like they were in Pop Warner, and Alex Smith returned to the Washington Football team.
Cowboys lose from start of DT Gerald McCoy for the 2020 season
McCoy tore his quadriceps tendon into practice on Monday, and he is done for the season.
#Cowboys COO Stephen Jones tells reporters that DT’s MRI Gerald McCoy showed a broken quad tendon and he is out for the season. Initial fear had been an ACL, but the MRI delivers bad news, nonetheless. A big hit.
– Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) August 17, 2020
A photojournalist actually suffered the injury when it happened.
The Cowboys signed McCoy this offseason to a three-year deal worth $ 18.3 million. He was still a good player, but at 32 years old, not the near-elite player he once was. McCoy has had at least 5 sacks in each of the last 7 seasons, though his numbers have been consistently on the downswing during that period.
As Eagles fans have learned in recent years, the older your players are, the more likely they are to be injured.
The Cowboys’ remaining defensive approach:
- Dontari Poe: Poe is a massive 6’3, 346-pound defensive approach in his ninth season. 20.5 career sacks, 4 last season. It makes sense for the Cowboys to add a massive runstopper to the interior to eat up space and make their linebackers behind him play pieces, but he is not much of a patient threat.
- Tyrone Crawford: Crawford plays inside and out. He missed 12 games last season, and switched to IR in October after undergoing hip surgery. Still recovering from that, he was placed on the PUP list to start camp, but was activated last Friday. He has been a solid but unspectacular starter in his career.
- Trysten Hill: The Cowboys signed Hill in the second round of the draft of 2019. He did next to nothing but be a rookie, appeared in 7 games, and made 5 tackles.
- Neville Gallimore: Gallimore was a third-round pick of the Cowboys in the 2020 draft. He was thought of as an athletic beast that came in at no. 2 in Bruce Feldman’s Freaks List of University Football in 2019 (via The Athletic). However, he had disappointing college production (8.5 career sacks), and although he had a fast 40 time, his Combine performance generally did not match the hype.
- Antwaun Woods: Woods has actually started 25 games (15 in 2018, 10 in 2019) for the Cowboys, but has made no real impact. OK against running, not threatening as a pass rusher.
Earlier, 25-year-old DT Maliek Collins, a prolific player in his four years in Dallas, signed for less money in Las Vegas in free agency (one year, $ 6 million) than what McCoy signed for Dallas.
Per Alex Didion of NBC Bay Area, Raiders defense coordinator Paul Guenther said of Collins, “He is perhaps our best acquisition for the offseason from what I have seen.”
MORE: Eagles training camp notes, Day 1: Miles Sanders, the next Brian Westbrook? | Wentz loves what he sees of Reagor, other Eagles rookie WRs | Eagles are already dealing with a few substantial injuries
Joe Judge makes his players run
Back in our Giants dumpster fire in June, we noted the shameful poor performance of Bill Belichick coaching tree, of which Judge is the 10th branch:
| Belichick coaching beam | Career record |
| Al Groh | 9-7 |
| Romeo Crennel | 28-55 |
| Nick Saban | 15-17 |
| Eric Mangini | 33-48 |
| Josh McDaniels | 11-17 |
| Jim Schwartz | 29-51 |
| Bill O’Brien | 54-48 |
| Matt Patricia | 9-22-1 |
| Brian Flores | 5-11 |
| Joe Judge | 0-0 |
| TOTAL | 193-276-1 (0.412) |
Judge is certainly not meant for failure, as Belichick’s past students have failed as head coaches at the pro level. That said, one theory about coaches of Belichick tree heads that makes sense to me is that they tend to try to rule over their players with an iron fist, but without first establishing the credibility and cache that Belichick himself has over two-plus decades.
There were already hints of that with Judge earlier this offseason. For example, he almost denied names of Daniel Jones ‘as one of his other players’ names for nearly four months after the Giants hired him. While I respect the idiosyncrasy, that’s some “High School Harry” nonsense.
In the first media-attended Giants practice, reporters found that players had their names thrown off their jerseys, forcing players to run rounds at a high frequency.
Not uncommon in today’s practice: Seeing players as whole units run to miss or penalty kicks. “There are consequences to making mistakes,” Joe Judge explained. https://t.co/tP9bpNCLBz
– Jordan Raanan (@JordanRaanan) August 17, 2020
LOL.
In 2018, most assumed that Alex Smith’s football career was over, after suffering a horrific, horrific injury that nearly cost him his leg (and life).
Alex Smith’s leg was crushed on November 18, 2018. In the days that followed, he developed sepsis, which nearly took his life.
He spent the next month in a hospital, then 3 in a wheelchair, then 8 in an external fixator. He had 17 surgeries within 9 months.Unusual provision.
– Field Yates (@FieldYates) August 16, 2020
On Sunday, after that long way back, Smith was officially fired to resume football activities.
Smith may actually never play in a game again (we’ll see), but he’s already a remarkable story.
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