A Few Good Men

You have to like the attitude and comments from Travis Frederick, the Cowboys first round draft pick Offensive Lineman who will most likely play Center but also played Guard Sunday Night in the Hall of Fame Game.  Here's a quote from Frederick from the Star-Telegram:

Travis Frederick liked his first NFL action at center.
“I thought that went pretty well,” he said.
His time at guard? Not as well. The Cowboys’ rookie first-round pick said he wasn’t as clean at right guard, where he played in the second half of Sunday night’s game against Miami.
“The mistake at guard was I overstepped on a shade technique in pass protection,” he said. “That was on me. It caused a pressure, not a sack. But a pressure is still not what we are looking for. I need to be solid.”
Frederick has been working at center the majority of the time in training camp, but the Cowboys are still looking at him at guard, potentially to play him at right guard and use veteran Phil Costa at center.

That's the kind of football players that are needed.  When asked about his performance, he talked about one technique misstep which created a QB "pressure", not a sack.  This attention to detail and desire to be perfect on every down is what has been missing for such a long time with the Cowboys.  There's a reason that only ~ 7 players are left on this team since Jason Garrett took over.  They didn't want to use the word re-building since Romo and Witten were in their prime.  But that's exactly what has been taking place.  And now we can only hope that the youth and "Garrett" kind of football guys can play at a level to help propel Romo, Witten, Ware deep into the playoffs before they are too old.  It may already be too late, but we'll see if the two timelines can overlap for a year or two before the "old" guys' physical ability begin to deteriorate to a fault.

Another point I want to make, is the drafting of Travis Frederick.  I get so tired of the "experts" in print, tv and radio, talking about how the Cowboys drafted Frederick too early.  If he ends up being a 10 - 12 year starter at center, gives continuity to the line, directs the line play calling, prevents pressure up the middle and clears holes for the RBs, then isn't that worth a first round draft pick?   My point is, you don't know how a good a draft is until at least 3 years later.  And amazingly, the "experts" love to talk about how poorly a team did with the draft, but they never come back and discuss their mistakes three years later.  I remember many experts saying that the Cowboys should've drafted Shawn Merriman instead of DeMarcus Ware.  So how did that work out??

I like the kind of people the Cowboys are drafting these days, and hopefully it will pay off in the next 2 -3 years before the "older" guys begin to fade.

Read more here: http://sportsblogs.star-telegram.com/cowboys/2013/08/tr.html#storylink=cpy