REMEMBER WHEN AUGUST MATTERED IN THE NFL?Rick Gosselin
Once upon a time NFL training camps were a time for players to get into shape and prepare themselves for a season.
Lee Roy Jordan recalled reporting to the Dallas Cowboys’ training camp in Thousand Oaks, Calif., four weeks before the first exhibition game. Then the Cowboys would play six preseason games. That’s 10 weeks the Cowboys spent together every summer under Hall of Fame coach Tom Landry before playing a meaningful snap.
The 2018 Cowboys reported for training camp 14 days before their first preseason game, then will play four of them. But the word “play” is an overstatement. A year ago, in the four Dallas preseason games, quarterback Dak Prescott played only three of a possible 16 quarters, throwing just 22 passes.
With the salary cap, there’s such a fear of injuries that NFL teams only play their starters enough in August to get a whiff of contact. That wasn’t the type of summer Jordan recalls during his days as the middle linebacker of the Cowboys in the 1960s and 1970s.
“We went full speed in drills every day against each other,” Jordan said. “We practiced and played those exhibition games like they were important. The starters played quite a bit. We played at least a half in every game and in the last preseason game we normally played the whole way. The final preseason game was sort of a dress rehearsal for the (season) kickoff the next week.”
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