Todd Archer, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

As pads come on, training camp officially starts

OXNARD, Calif. -- The Dallas Cowboys flew to California on Tuesday, had meetings on Wednesday and workouts on Thursday and Friday.

In some ways training camp actually starts Saturday when the pads come on for the first time.

Since the new collective bargaining agreement, teams have had to work two days at the start of camp to help players acclimate to practicing once again. Coach Jason Garrett took that slow-and-steady pace another step by keeping the offense and defense on separate fields for the first two days and avoiding 11-on-11 drills.

"If you think about it, these guys have been off, away from each other for five weeks," Garrett said. "So as not to put them in a competitive situation where they might kind of not be ready for it, they don't have their football feet underneath them and they compromise themselves physically. So we feel like it's time well spent to really emphasize the fundamentals, go back and re-install Day 1 and Day 2, get them mentally ready -- but more than that, get themselves physically ready to do the movements necessary to play this game."

Jason Witten entered the NFL under Bill Parcells when teams could run two-a-days in full pads. As he enters year No. 13, he is appreciative of the change in format but is looking forward to actual football for the first time since January.

"I think really it all starts [today] with the way you attack it when you go full pads," Witten said. "It's good to get your feet underneath you and kind of get the cobwebs out. I'm just excited to kind of get this started and nothing like being in training camp and fighting for roster spots and really just trying to fight for what your role on the team's going to be and what we're going to be as a football team. I believe that a lot of that's created now. Not just finding who some of the guys who are going to make the team are. I think for all of us, the style in which we play, I think it begins now. Really it started probably back in May. But now you have the pads. I think we'll be able to tell a lot about how we work and how we approach it."

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