being late for the special teams portion before practice, and that was turned into a national incident: Coach Yells at Players. Imagine that, and darn it, I missed that while in Canton, Ohio. Just my luck.
Why, it wasn't until Tuesday evening one of my brethren from Sports Radio 1310, The Ticket, now the team's radio network flagship station, tried to pull a press conference stunt, but Wade Phillips took the old-time reporter nonsense from the Babe Ruth era - a great Jimmy Cagney - in stride.
Ho-hum.
And you know what? I never even saw the owner get peeved at anyone, and it seems someone every camp seems to get so far under Jerry Jones' skin the veins break out in his neck. But this year? Nothing. Maybe he's now Built Ford Tough as this training camp was appropriately named.
About the only offensive incident was national references by those who are thousands of miles away referring to this training camp as "Camp Cupcake." Ha. They obviously haven't seen the crickets.
They would have had to rename Hard Knocks this year here to No Knocks.
Even the media has behaved after hours to my knowledge, and probably much to the chagrin of my retired colleagues who terrorized Thousand Oaks, Calif., Austin, and Wichita Falls. No one ran over a fallen motorcyclist. No one passed out in their car parked outside the coaches' dorm, as one guy did at Cal Lutheran, only to be found by Tom Landry in the morning. No one broke an ankle stepping off a curb. No one at 3 in the morning was hitting golf balls off the gravel parking lot into the power plant, as was done one summer in Austin. And no one had a waitress scream "and the big guy thinks he's God" at them in a watering hole.
Now, not to worry Wade, Jerry and anyone else who might be superstitious for all this being pointed out. I did knock on some serious wood before even thinking about all this, let alone writing it. So I'm clear.
But again, this was only 16 days, and while the Cowboys pulled up stakes on Wednesday, camp is not done. The club will maintain a training camp routine back at The Ranch following Thursday night's preseason opener against the world champion Indianapolis Colts at Texas Stadium (7 p.m. CDT, Fox). That will continue through the Denver preseason game (Aug. 18).
And it's not as if all is perfect. The Cowboys still are a tad concerned about the backup nose tackle position, but again, if your biggest concern is a backup spot . . . please. The kicking situation hasn't sorted itself out, but that starts Thursday night. Same with the third quarterback spot, although that guy seems destined for the practice squad if he's even on the roster at this point.
There seems to be an abundance of receivers and cornerbacks who are of NFL quality, but then that's a good thing since you might be able to pick up a sixth- or seventh-round pick if these guys are able to translate their practice play into preseason games and attract another team's interest. Come on, they got a seventh last summer for Sean Ryan.
Camp Contentment.
What gives? These are not the Cowboys I've known for 23 years. This team rendered the TV live trucks antennas impotent. Where's Hollywood and Too Tall and Michael and Rohr and Hambrick(s) and Larrimore and Ross and Longley when you need them? Come on, where's Meredith and Solomon and Gogan and Too-ey and Jimmy and Bill? Geesh, doesn't anyone even have asthma?
No drama.
And I always thought Cowboys would be Cowboys.
