After wide receiver Dez Bryant suffered a high ankle sprain during practice on Friday, Jerry Jones questioned the way the Cowboys’ coaching staff handled the workload of the rookie.
Apparently the Dallas owner wanted answers as to why his first round pick was injured on a football field while performing football-related activities during a football practice.
“It was really disappointing and it really causes you to … ask what can you do, what can you do in practices that can mitigate some of the exposure to some of these injuries,” Jones told ESPN’s Chris Mortensen after watching footage of the injury. Jones did not attend Friday’s practice.
“The key thing is you ask yourself, ‘Are we pushing him too hard; does it happen at the end of practice when the players are tired?’ ” said Jones, who added, “We all know now when you get a little tired you can get injured.”
Jones has every right to question the way his coaching staff is handling his players, but he’s going a tad overboard here. He’s been around football long enough to know that injuries are part of the game. They’re unavoidable.
If undrafted rookie guard Phil Costa suffered a high ankle sprain, would Jones have said the same thing? Would he have wondered if the Dallas coaching staff pushed Costa too hard? Doubtful.
Granted, Jones has more invested in Bryant than he does Costa, but the point is no matter how you slice it, football is a physical game. Whether guys or tired or not, focused or unfocused, injuries happen to everyone. No one is immune.
