USA TODAY International Edition
Leighton Vander Esch a howling success Always competing
Cowboys’ rookie linebacker grew up in hunting family
FRISCO, Texas – Leighton Vander Esch wondered when it was going to be over. The toddler was riding horseback with father Darwin alongside the Riggins, Idaho, mountains in the pitchblack night. The Vander Esches were en route to another hunting trip, another day of arriving at camp at 4 a.m., shooting bear or deer or elk or wolves, and then returning late.
“There are some intense memories,” Leighton told USA TODAY of his hunting childhood. “I feel like that was a lot of the start of everything.”
The adrenaline of hunting, the fear of falling off the mountain on horseback, the insistence of hiking 2 miles at 2 years, 4 months old rather than having Darwin carry him? Those experiences, and the keen senses imperative to ambushing prey 900 yards out, helped mold the electric rookie linebacker Cowboys teammates and coaches now call “the Wolf Hunter.”
So when Vander Esch emerged from the AT&T Stadium tunnel last Thursday nearly 2,000 miles from the hunts so vivid in his mind, he was ready to trade the tense silence of those pursuits for the ecstatic cheers of 93,004 fans.
Wolf howls screeched through loud speakers.
The Wolf Hunter did the only thing he could think of. He howled, too.
“It gave me chills, man,” Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott said. “The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.”
Before Vander Esch made it to AT&T Stadium, first for the 2018 draft when Dallas selected him in the first round and as a rookie helping anchor a defense allowing just 18.6 points a game (second in the league), he honed his athleticism in a 50-by-70-foot homemade gym.
He challenged his mom, Sandy, to nightly 1-on-1 basketball games.
“Sometimes she’d let me beat her,” Leighton said.
Then he turned 13.
“And there was no way I could beat him,” Sandy said. “I was like, ‘OK, game on.’ ”
For Leighton, the game was always on. When a family member lost at HORSE or cards, a challenge for a rematch always followed. At go-kart outings, Darwin begged baffled racetrack employees to give him the fastest car.
When Leighton, who can still launch a spiral 60 to 70 feet flat-footed, tried out at a Boise State camp, the high school quarterback/running back/tight end/linebacker/safety/kicker finished second of 40 passers in skill testing.
Before long, he was 2017 Mountain West defensive player of the year.
He set his eyes on the Cowboys. It was their linebackers coach, Ben Bloom, who had offered tips on the combine, and veteran linebacker Sean Lee who spent 15-20 minutes chatting with him on his pre-draft visit. But seeing Lee, the only player at headquarters besides ex-Cowboys tight end Jason Witten in, running drills on a spring day?
“I’m like, ‘Whoa,’ ” Vander Esch said. “I really want to be here to play with a guy like him.”
Bothered by mistakes
The Cowboys’ first-round selection of Vander Esch ensured that. Lee’s hamstring injury, which has sidelined him for seven games this season, vaulted the 22-year-old into a starting role.
The rookie leads the Cowboys with 128 tackles despite starting just seven of 12 games. He snagged interceptions in back-to-back games in November, with his performance in a win over the Eagles leading him to be named NFC defensive player of the week before he was awarded defensive rookie of the month.
But it’s the Cowboys’ one loss in November, not their four wins, that runs through Vander Esch’s mind.
In a 28-14 loss to the Titans on Nov. 5, Vander Esch missed not one but two tackles.
“That’s the most missed tackles I’ve had in forever,” Vander Esch told USA TODAY. “Those two bother me. I still think about it. That irritates me.”
He returned home from Dallas’ 22-19 win over Atlanta, which his goal-line stop of Austin Hooper and interception off Calvin Ridley’s hands helped secure, and never mentioned his biggest achievement.
“Did you see I missed a tackle?” he instead asked his fiancée, Maddy Tucker.
“He didn’t say one word about the interception,” Tucker said. “Missing the tackle bugs the crap out of him.
“If he misses a tackle, it’s like a loss.” Against the Eagles, Vander Esch intercepted Carson Wentz and tripped Corey Clement with two minutes to play for a key 5-yard loss to maintain Dallas’ 27-20 lead.
But he also felt like “another interception or two I was just a step behind,” Vander Esch said casually, as if two more picks on the season wouldn’t make him the franchise rookie leader in picks. Nine more tackles and he’ll break the Cowboys’ rookie tackling record. His goals extend much further.
“I want to be one of the best linebackers, if not the best linebackers, in the National Football League,” he said.
And when he does feast on the next tackle for loss, interception or big play? Expect the Wolf Hunter to howl. “My teammates felt like it was pretty sweet,” he said of his new celebration. “It’s cool to give them a little bit of energy to feed off.
“I feed off every bit of energy I get from them.”