TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2010


KLMNO PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL


EZ SU


D3


TONI L. SANDYS/THE WASHINGTON POST Owner Jerry Jones very much wants his Cowboys to play February’s Super Bowl in their splashy home stadium, and for that to happen, quarterback Tony Romo needs to point the way. Cowboys want to host a Super Bowl party


With expectations through the open roof at its giant stadium, Dallas keeps the focus on its first opponent, the Redskins BY MARKMASKE


arlington, tex. — It all is set up so wonderfully for the Dallas Cowboys, with the Super Bowl scheduled to be played in their palatial second-year stadium in February and a team that looks like it just might be capable of being on the field that evening. But living up to the outsized


expectations that accompany the Cowboys into virtually every sea- son has been problematic for the franchise in its recent past. Last season concluded on a disap- pointing note even after the club ended its long drought without a postseason victory. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones


wasn’t taking a big-picture view after his team wrapped up its preseason here last Thursday night with a triumph over the Miami Dolphins. Instead, he lim- ited his focus to his club’s readi- ness for its regular season opener Sunday night against the Wash- ington Redskins at FedEx Field. “Iknowthatwe’veputthework


in,” Jones said as he stood in a corridor outside the home locker room at Cowboys Stadium. “I know that our team will be ready to play when we get up there. . . . We’re going to go into the Red- skins game about as healthy as you could hope or expect out of a


training camp, a five-week train- ing camp.” Many regard the Cowboys as


the team to beat in the NFC East after they won the division last season and beat the Philadelphia Eagles in the opening round of the playoffs. That was the Cow- boys’ first postseason triumph since Dec. 28, 1996. But the Cow- boys followed that with a dud in Minneapolis, losing to theMinne- sota Vikings, 34-3, in an NFC semifinal. As the new season nears, the Cowboys say their performance against the Vikings in the playoffs should continue to serve as moti- vation for a better outcome this time around. “It goes back to thatMinnesota


game, when that finished last year and the feeling we kind of had at the end of that game,” tight end Jason Witten said in the lock- er room after the preseason fina- le. “The work has been put in by a lot of guys,coachesandplayers, to give ourselves a chance.” So now the question has be-


come not whether Coach Wade Phillips and quarterback Tony Romo can get the Cowboys a postseason win, but whether they can deliver more than that. Phil- lips faced speculation all of last season that Jones might fire him if he didn’t secure a playoff victo- ry. Phillips is back, but now the


ceiver Dez Bryant fell to them with the 24th overall selection in the NFL draft in April. Bryant was ruled ineligible for


TONY GUTIERREZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS


Expectations are high for rookie wide receiver Dez Bryant, sidelined during preseason with a high-ankle sprain but eager for his debut.


next step is for the Cowboys to move closer to recapturing the glory days when they won three Super Bowls for Jones between the 1992 and ’95 seasons. Romotoneddownthe risk-tak-


ing in his game last season and was a dependable quarterback, with 26 touchdown passes and only nine interceptions during the regular season. He had three turnovers in the season-ending playoff loss to the Vikings, though. Now that he has reached age 30 and is entering his fourth full season as an NFL starter, his task will be finding the right bal- ance between avoiding mistakes


and seeking the occasional spec- tacular play, and maintaining that balance in the biggest games. There is some question about


the quality of the protection that Romo will get from his offensive line. The Cowboys released veteran


left tackle Flozell Adams in the offseason.DougFree takes over as the starter at that position. Wit- ten and wide receiver Miles Aus- tin, who is coming off a break- through season in which he had 1,320 receiving yards, remain as Romo’s top targets. The Cowboys may have received a major break when Oklahoma State wide re-


Haynesworth continues to make progress redskins from D1


Haynesworth’s play against the Cardinals, a game in which the two-time all-pro played 49 of 55 snaps, mostly against Arizona’s reserves. “I don’t go through a lot of


detail, but anytime a person plays the defensive end position and nose position, it takes some time — it doesn’t happen over- night,” Shanahan said on Mon- day. “He played a lot of plays. I thought he did a good job, con- sidering he played asmany plays as he did at a couple different positions. And not having the reps some of the other players had at it, it was work that was well needed and he played hard.” Even though Haynesworth


isn’t expected to start against the Cowboys, defensive coordinator JimHaslett said he lined up with both the first- and the second- team defenses in practice on Monday. While Haynesworth could


still play an important role in the game, particularly in the nickel packages, Haslett said it really doesn’t matter whether Haynes- worth cracks the starting rota- tion. “Whoever plays in this game,


we alternate [so] it doesn’t make a difference,” Haslett said. “You can say they start, they don’t start — it really doesn’t make a difference because whoever is up, all of them play.” If Haynesworth doesn’t take


the field at the onset of Sunday’s game, the starting defensive line will likely consist of nose tackle Ma’ake Kemoateu and defensive ends Adam Carriker and Kedric Golston. Haynesworth would likely relieve both Kemoateu in the middle and Golston at right end.


JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST


Redskins CoachMike Shanahan saidMonday that AlbertHaynesworth, left, is “getting better.” Coaches made clear when


Haynesworth skipped the team’s offseason workouts that he’d be missing essential practice time learning the new 3-4 defensive scheme and would start the pre- season behind his teammates. Since passing his conditioning test and fully joining his team- mates 10 days into training camp,Haynesworth has lined up with the defensive reserves in practice. Coaches had hoped he’d pick


up the defensive principles and techniques in time to join the starting rotation and contribute once the regular season began. While he’ll likely come off the bench Sunday against the Cow- boys, coaches have still noted his progress. “It’s just he hasn’t been here that long, if you think about it,”


Haslett said. “He had the five practices in training camp, then you got another five. So you’re talking about 12, 13, 14 practices. So I think he’s finally, it’s starting to come around.” Shanahan said Haynesworth


is “in much better shape now than he was before” and that he believes the two-time all-pro is beginning to adjust to the new techniques needed in a 3-4 front. “As I said, it’s just not the


effort, you got to get used to the technique,” Shanahan said. “So when you play a couple different positions, it’s going to be tough, that’s just part of it. But he worked hard and made a few mistakes here and there, but he’s getting better.” Shanahan has preached his


one-day-at-a-time message throughout the preseason and


most of his final season in college after lying to an NCAA investiga- tor about his contact with former NFL cornerback Deion Sanders. He also was involved in a contro- versy when it was reported that Dolphins General Manager Jeff Ireland had asked Bryant during a pre-draft interview whether Bryant’s mother was a prostitute. Ireland apologized, and the two shook hands and spoke on the field before last Thursday’s pre- season game. The Cowboys’ biggest worry


aboutBryant is thathemissed the entire preseason with a high-an- kle sprain suffered in training camp. His first snap in an NFL game will come under the bright lights of the nationally televised opener against the Redskins. “I don’t think it will be hard at


all,” Bryant said. “It’ll motivate me. It’ll make me want to come out and just play to the best ofmy abilities.” The ball-carrying duties again


will be split between tailbacks Marion Barber and Felix Jones. One potential problem area in


a season with such lofty aspira- tions is that the Cowboys are entrusting their field goal duties to second-year place kicker David


Buehler, their kickoff specialist only last season as a rookie. So it was a welcome sight for the Cow- boys when Buehler calmly con- nected on a game-winning field goal in the finalsecondsof the last preseason game. “That was worth the ballgame


to us to see him step up there and make those kicks. So we’ve got us a kicker.” The pressure could be far more


intense if Buehler faces another kick Sunday night with a regular season game on the line. But Bue- hler shrugged off that suggestion. “The way I approached the


game is the way I approach a regular season game,” Buehler said. “My job is on the line and I have to come through in the clutch and make kicks.” The offense sputtered at times


during the preseason, but Witten said the problems can be fixed with some attention to detail and “basic execution.” The Cowboys are more than ready to begin playing the games that count, he said. “We’ve put in a lot of hard work


in the last month and a half,” Witten said. “I feel like we’re a confident group. . . . So now it’s time to go to work.That’swhatwe do all this training for, to get to this time of the year. We’re all anxious for it.” maskem@washpost.com


Redskins Insider Blogging at voices.washingtonpost.com/redskinsinsider


Sizing up the final 53-player roster Judging fromsome of the e-


mailwe’ve received the past two days, Insider readers are hungry for comment fromRedskins officials about their roster decisions. Well, so arewe. After initially informing


members of themedia there would be availability Saturday, theRedskins sent out an advisory at 11:13 p.m. Friday that itwas canceled.GeneralManagerBruce Allen is not expected to discuss the opening 53-man rosterwith local reporters. CoachMike Shanahan is in


that seems be an especially perti- nent theme when it comes to Haynesworth. Coaches will con- tinue to monitor his progress, but six weeks afterHaynesworth reported to training camp and began to first digest the tenets of Haslett’s scheme, coaches still won’t commit to starting him. “Hopefully as the season goes


on, the first two or three games, you’ll get better and better,” said defensive end Phillip Daniels. “But right now, he’s improved a lot since the first day he got here. You can’t ask him to do much more than that, just keeping improving.” “He’s learning every day, he’s improving every day, that’s all you can ask,” Daniels said. “It’s time to move on to football and not even worry about that stuff.” maeser@washpost.com


charge of player-personnel and heads the entire football operation, so it’s expected that he will address themedia after practiceMonday afternoon.Of course, the rosterwas set Saturday, the practice squad Sunday and Shanahan is now focused on preparing to face the DallasCowboys on Sunday night in the season opener. Itwouldn’t be shocking if


Shanahan declined to revisit the rostermaneuvering of the past fewdays.Hopefully, Shanahan will comment on the roster. If he declines, however, some things seemapparent: The 2008 draft classwas really


bad.GuardChad “TheRhino” Rinehart (a third-round pick)was released and nickel cornerback JustinTryon (a fourth-rounder) was traded to the Indianapolis Colts for a draft pick.Beginning their third season in theNFL, few guys fromthat class have done much. The 2010 class, Shanahan’s first in control of the football


operation, isn’t off to a great start, either.TheRedskins cut or traded four of their six selections in the most recent draft. “Theworst thing people can


do is keep a draft pick just to keep a draft pick,” Shanahan said recently. “What you do is you keep the peoplewho give you the best chance towin.” Defensive end Jeremy Jarmon


did everything the coaching staff askedwhile trying to regain form after knee surgery. First, they asked himto dropweight and become an outside linebacker in the new3-4 scheme.He had never played linebacker.Then, they asked himto addweight and move to defensive end, basically a three-technique defensive lineman in a 4-3.He had rarely lined up at three-technique. Jarmon also began to showsome encouraging signs at defensive end.After all that, theRedskins couldn’t have cut Jarmon.Well, they could have.But it’s good that they didn’t.


Balogun to practice squad TheRedskins hit the practice


fieldMonday at 2 p.m., and they had at least one newplayer in uniform.The teamadded an eighth player to the practice squad: linebackerMikeBalogun. Balogun had spent the


preseasonwith San Francisco but was released lastweek.He had eight tackles and one interception in four preseason games. Balogun, 26, is a native of


UpperMarlboro and the semi-pro teamhe reportedly played forwas theMarylandMarauders of the NorthAmerican Football League. — JasonReid andRickMaese


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