Cowboys go for secrecy in broadcast
ARLINGTON, Texas – Mike Mccarthy had warned that “it’s not a scrimmage, per se.”
The Cowboys’ first-year coach had said that the team’s first 2020 visit to AT&T Stadium would be “more like a practice” – a hybrid, it seemed, of practice-like football and game-day routines. But the Cowboys’ live-streamed Sunday night football notably omitted a feature that any typical practice or game would include.
Players’ jerseys bore no names or numbers.
Chalk up the blank white and blue fabrics to Mccarthy’s desire to keep any intel on his new team and new scheme close to the vest. No need for “downthe-line guys” to be “advertising” their skills to 31 other teams, owner Jerry Jones said. The Cowboys will trim their roster from 80 to 53 men by Saturday. They’ll hope a portion of the players they cut clear waivers and return to their 16-man practice squad.
“I can’t tell you the number of conversations you have about competitive advantage and disadvantage,” Mccarthy said Sunday night after practice. “Frankly, with the fact that we were televising the practice here tonight, we would be exposing our younger players to an evaluation process that the other teams really are not exposing their team to.
“That was the reason behind going with the white and blue shirts this evening.”
For 90 minutes, the Cowboys’ anonymous blue and white players cycled through 79 snaps of offense vs. defense, 16 special teams snaps and 18 snaps mocking two-minute scenarios, per Mccarthy. The coach anticipates about 68 plays of offense vs. defense and 22 on special teams during a typical game. The conditioning stress met his benchmarks.
So did the veil of secrecy.
Sunday night, and throughout training camp, reporters were prohibited from reporting specific plays, formations or personnel usage. No photos or video, either, save team-supplied intentional footage with attribution. The broadcast steered clear of meaningful on-field shots. While quarterback Dak Prescott found a blank-jersey receiver for a crisp touchdown, the stream aired a days-old interview clip of linebacker Leighton Vander Esch.
How often did the defense mix a 3-4 look into a 4-3 base defense? Sunday viewers wouldn’t know. Which starting receiver might have taken a wildcat snap in a recent training camp practice? No word on that, either.
“The only potential advantage we have being a first-year staff is preparing in training camp,” Mccarthy said Aug. 17 when asked about whether he’d line up running backs Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard together. “I’m not respectfully going to talk about how we use our players. We’re not playing preseason games. Those tendencies of how you utilize all the positions, we want to keep as close to the vest as possible.
“There’s no big secret if we put Zeke and Tony on the field together. I mean, obviously, it makes perfect sense. But the utilization of personnel is something I’m going to stay away from throughout the training camp.”
Mccarthy admitted that vice president of player personnel Will Mcclay has organized a system for monitoring other teams’ feeds in the most closedbook preseason in recent memory.
Still, Sunday gave the Cowboys a chance to rehearse their game day routine, from pregame meal to pregame bus ride to position-by-position warmups. Mccarthy could see how rookies (once he identified them) vying for roster spots performed with a spotlight just slightly brighter. Offensive coordinator Kellen Moore practiced calling newly installed plays from the sideline. Defensive coordinator Mike Nolan radioed in coverages from the booth.
“Really, the biggest thing for us Sunday is to create game-like situations,” Mccarthy had said. “We’ll have a number of segments called ‘move the ball’ where the offense, where Kellen and Mike Nolan will just call it as if there was a game. Our goal, Sunday and even Monday’s practice, where we have seven ‘move the ball’ periods slated.
“It’s a get-into-the-game-type situation.”
Fans wanting to “get into the game” need wait just two weeks until the Cowboys help the Los Angeles Rams christen Sofi Stadium in their season opener.
By then, Cowboys players might even take the field with numbers and names.