OXNARD, Calif. – It's been a long couple of days for Cole Beasley.
On Friday, the rookie receiver told head coach Jason Garrett that his heart was no longer in the game of football, but he changed his mind late Saturday, boarded an early morning flight from Dallas Sunday and will participate in the afternoon scrimmage.
"I just had a couple of issues that I had to take care of, and go home and spend some time with my family and go over some stuff," Beasley said. "I think I got all that resolved, and now I'm just ready to focus on football."
Beasley wouldn't elaborate on the situation except to say it had been weighing on him for several days, but did not involve football. The SMU product had shined in some of this summer's Organized Team Activity and minicamp practices, but still has a long way to go in camp to show he is deserving of a spot on the 53-man roster.
"I think it's been going all right," Beasley said. "I still need to learn the offense a little bit more and get to where I feel comfortable in there, to where I can just play and not think so much, but other than that I think it's been going all right. … The best players are going to play. I've just got to show I can play football regardless of what has happened. We're just going to try to forget about the past and everything, and move forward and focus only on football, and then everything else will take care of itself."
Garrett said that Beasley will be evaluated from this point forward.
"One of the things we liked about Cole Beasley is his passion for the game and his hunger for the game," Garrett said. "He came back and he didn't have that same fire, and sometimes when you're a rookie free agent in the NFL, the world seems really big to you, and these days seem monumental and hard and challenging, and maybe they take a little of the spirit out of you. What he needed was to step back a little bit, take a breath, regain some perspective. His dad was a former high school coach. They had a good visit.
"When I spoke with him yesterday, it was like the guy that we signed back after the draft."
Though Garrett said the issue is done in his mind, Beasley admits he's anticipating some ribbing from teammates.
"They're fine right now. We'll see," Beasley said. "There's always some doubts in how they would look at me. Some guys may say some things and might not be as nice, but they're just there to give you a hard time. They're your teammates. That's all it is."
