IRVING, Texas -- The Dallas Cowboys know how the Denver Broncos feel.
Broncos left tackle Ryan Clady, the man responsible for protecting Peyton Manning's blindside, suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament during organized team activities (OTAs) and was lost for the season before it could even begin.
Last year the Cowboys saw their best defensive player, linebacker Sean Lee, go down with a torn ACL and miss the season.
Teams, coaches and players are used to injuries. It is a part of NFL life. They accept them the way we accept mosquito bites in the summer time.
But it is the timing of the injuries that hurts more. Practices at this time of the year are conducted without pads. It’s "non-contact" in the way that basketball is non-contact. It’s football, so there’s contact.
Lee tore his ACL as he attempted to change direction quickly on a running play, a tic before Zack Martin was lining up to block him. Clady was hurt pass blocking.
If it were Week 1 or Week 5 or even in training camp, teams can feel better about losing a player like Lee or Clady because it came under real football conditions.
Short of not practicing at all, there really is nothing that can be done to protect players from these injuries.
At Wednesday’s news conference, Jason Garrett offered up something I had never heard him say about an offseason practice. He was talking about the benefits of Tony Romo's ability to take part in the offseason program after back surgeries kept the quarterback out of the spring work in 2013 and ’14.
Garrett never called it a concession to attempting to avoid injuries, but it had me wondering if that is what he was getting at as he spoke.
“This is an important time of year for us as coaches to have discipline, to make sure we get the younger guys a look,” Garrett said. “If we have a team period of 12 plays, we have to make sure the younger guys get some of those snaps or get a portion of those snaps each and every day so we can evaluate them. And sometimes, we all get excited. We all want to have those first guys out there, and we want to see some of the guys who we believe will make our team getting the work. But we've got to be disciplined enough to get the younger guys the work where they can improve and we have a good opportunity to evaluate them.”
In other words, we know what Romo, Lee, Jason Witten, Orlando Scandrick, Greg Hardy and some others can do. Let’s see more of the younger players we don’t know about.
To make sure coaches remain disciplined, the number of plays for the player are scripted. The first-team offense took four snaps in team and 7-on-7 drills on Wednesday.
“We tell ourselves before practice starts that this is what we're doing,” Garrett said.
Will it end injuries? No, not all of them, but if it keeps the core players on the field for when the games are real, then that’s what matters most.