OT- Rough Start for Cowboys Rookie WR
SAN ANTONIO -- Receiver Dez Bryant has done everything right on the field during the first two days of Dallas Cowboys training camp, but he refuses to participate in an NFL rite of passage.
According to the rookie first-round pick, Roy Williams and the other veteran receivers can carry their own shoulder pads after practice.
Williams gave his pads to Bryant after Sunday's morning practice, but Bryant declined to carry them. Williams threatened to go to "step two" when talking to reporters.
"I'm not doing it," Bryant said. "I feel like I was drafted to play football, not carry another player's pads."
"If I was a free agent, it would still be the same thing. I just feel like I'm here to play football. I'm here to try to help win a championship, not carry someone's pads. I'm saying that out of no disrespect to [anyone]."
http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/nfl/news/story?id=5409306
Stay tuned for more.
Edit: Upon reading it in the AM, i stand corrected by my peers, no errors.
a summer none story ...
the vets will mess with him more till he decides to accept the hazing and it will just blow over when he is catching tds from romo ... that pass attack is stacked
Roy Williams is becoming T.O. 2.0. People here in Texas are getting very frustrated with Williams. The general sentiment is that people want him cut and don't want Crayton to leave, but Jerry Jones is very stubbon and doesn't want to admit his mistake with Williams so he'll keep him for another year.
Love that attitude Dez.....you were put on this earth to do what makes you happy
Bryant isn't doing himself any favors by not participating in traditional rookie rituals. Since every player on the team probably did participate, Bryant is sending a message to everyone on his own team that he is better than they are. That can cause bad things to happen. QB's, for example, can hang passes just enough for him to get lit up trying to catch them.
Williams' may very well be a diva, but telling an entire team that one is too good to participate in their social rituals before ever playing a down of NFL ball is not the way to have a long, prosperous career in the NFL.
You really think Romo is going to hang a pass up over the middle in an effort to get one of his WRs "lit up" and possibly seriously injured, all because he didn't carry Roy "Look At Me I Just Got A Meaningless First Down In A Game We're Losing 34-7" Williams' shoulder pads?
That's just a plain dumb thing to say.
mess up an otherwise solid post. I was reading and thinking "yes, yes, --what?---yes, yes."
Regarding those rookie rituals, they may be silly and not make sense rationally, but they exist, and they serve a purpose for team unity by showing that even the highest paid #1 pick can humble himself and do something silly. To decide that you won't participate is IME an indication that this is just the first of other things in the future that Bryant will decide he's "not here to do."
I do see your point. I guess when it comes down to it, mostly I just think Roy Williams sucks.
I can see you're point of view on Roy Williams. He never reached his expected potential in Detroit. I know that it is a bitter memory for alot of Lions fans. Just remember, you guys are collecting the pieces of the puzzle and the glory days are coming again.
Haha, what glory days? The 50s?
As for Roy, I'm all for celebrating accomplishments, but I see zero point in showboating after making a first down in a game you're losing by 3+ scores late in the 4th quarter. I don't think he'll ever reach the potential he had coming out of UT, where his every whim was coddled to by Mack Brown.
Roy Williams should carry his own pads. It is the closest he will come to earning his pay check all year.
Another example of entitlement in sports getting worse. He doesn't want to earn his stripes in the lockerroom with the vets, just like every other player always has.
I DARE you Roy Williams, to take it to...STEP 2, lol.
Nah man, those are errors! I mean, he's clearly talking about filling up his car. Dez Bryant better watch himself or else Roy Williams will steal $50 in gas from him! That would definitely show that millionaire athlete who's the boss.
I don't think this would be the first time that someone didn't know what the hell Roy Williams was talking about.
What is it with WRs??
In the book North Dallas Forty, as I recall, the coaches get Peter Gent's attention by telling him to run a pattern where the pass is coming on three....and have the QB throw it on two. So when he makes his cut and puts his hands up, the ball is already there. Gent's character spends the next couple of plays tending to his dislocated fingers.
that thinks hazing is BS? What is the fucking point? Maybe NFL players should work more on trying to justify their multimillion $ paychecks and less on trying to make the new guys their "bitches" for the season.
Having said that, the best strategy to deal with the hazing is to gamely play along and get it over with. He'll be done with it sooner, and he's less likely to have to deal with hard feelings from your teammates. The way he's trying to avoid it will just prolong the whole process, and runs the risk of alienating some of his teammates before he's played a regular season game.
What is the point? The point is to get it inside a rookie's head that just cause he's earning four times what most of the rest of the team is making, he's not special. I'd hardly qualify carrying someone's pads as "hazing" anyway. I'll flip it around: what has Dez Bryant done to earn his multimillion dollar paycheck?
Hazing exists for rookies to remind them that there 50 other guys on the team and most of them spent the previous year destroying their bodies, playing with injuries, working their nuts off, and basically shortening their lives in an effort to win football games.
NFL players don't give a damn what you did in college. You're a rookie? You know nothing. In fact, if you actually KNEW that you knew nothing, that would be something. But rookies don't even know that.
Dez Bryant is going to find himself taped to the goalposts after practice in a couple of days.
should look at this: http://www.gannett.cornell.edu/hazing/issues/arguments.cfm
I'm sure you were trying to make me do a 180 on my pro-hazing stance, but this article actually re-inforced all of the reasons that I am for it.
The world is breeding self-entitled pussies. Nobody thinks they need to earn anything any more.
because some good hazing will cure all of society's problems.
*sigh*
I would never suggest that to be true. However, it's really easy for you to be on the outside looking at something you don't understand and write it off as nothing more than stupid and potentially harmful.
I'm not talking about "Whoo-let's-see-how-drunk-we-can-get-and-embarass-these-bitches" hazing (which, admittedly, is the sole motivation for some). Hazing can be constructive and can challenge you to develop coping skills, promote self-discipline, and prepare you for emotional challenges in life, as cited in your linked article.
There isn't as much adversity for people growing up in the 21st century compared to those in past generations. If there is a way to promote adversity in a controlled environment that will serve as a valuable developmental tool for an individual, and if an individual voluntarily chooses to be placed in that environment to achieve some end-result, whose business is it except for that of those involved?
because I think hazing is useless and it's good he's confident enough to tell a mediocre WR, "I'm not carrying your pads...you have arms of your own." But, the hazing isn't going to stop, someone will make him do something so he might as well just get it done and over with.
They'll eventually leave him alone.
was pointing for a first down every other game
How often do people talk about a "welcome to the NFL moment"? usually it's when a veteran safety owns a wide out, but on some level, most Rookies need to be reminded that they are rookies and that this isnt college anymore. Remember, a lot of these kids think that they are amazing. They were dominant high school athletes, got recruited for college, were great, and then signed contracts telling them they are worth millions. All before playing a down. Not everyone is Brandon Graham (who knows he needs to work hard), and some of them need to be reminded that they're just rookies. Since there is no rookie pay scale, it happens in other ways.
The hockey team I coached had all the freshmen in charge of the water bottles and pucks after every game and practice. It was important for the team, and it didnt matter if you were an all star freshman or the back of the bench, but you helped. That said, no one ever had to carry anyone else's equipment and hazing in general is a slippery slope. Especially within groups/positions, if there is 1 rookie and everyone else makes him their "bitch" then we're in trouble. if ALL the rookies have to do stuff for the team (Pick up pucks for example) then I'm ok with it.
Disclaimer: I am not condoning hazing of any type. I do not think assigning productive team related tasks to a specific group of people is hazing (as outlined above with my example). Negative hazing (head shaving, drinking, other forced, not-productive activities) has no place anywhere, and it's all about the hazer's insecurities, and is in my opinion, horseshit. I was greek at school and not once did i do something i did not want to do. No one above me was hazed, and they had no right to haze me.
Williams is coming off as the loser here because it's very obvious he is worried about this rookie taking his job, and therefore his insecurities are coming out as he wants to haze Dez. Man up Roy, these things are supposed to be fun. Dora Backpacks, singing for the team, etc. When these activities become not fun, thats when the line gets crossed
The problem is that you believe in your very principled anti-hazing stance, but you might have nothing on someone who thinks the Dora backpacks and forced karaoke are demeaning and wrong as well. That's why the whole hazing debate sucks - everyone has a line to be crossed, but put them all together and it's nothing but a big gray area running from "everything's cool" to "nothing at all."
Case in point, back on my first ship in the Navy we had to watch a training video on "crossing the line" ceremonies and what was OK (guy dressing as Neptune and having people ask politely for his permission to enter his realm) and what wasn't (garbage diving, actual whipping, etc.) Both are so far apart from the middle ground that actually tends to go on in such ceremonies, but after the video our captain even went so far as to say that even the super-lame "ceremony" pictured in the OK section was not cool with him.
And then you get the fun-suckers who get people in trouble for hazing even though they're the ones being hazed, just because they're enjoying it and going along with it. You see that all the time too: guys who think it's funny to tape the new guy in the shop to a wheeled chair and push him all over the shop, and the guy laughing the hardest is the guy in the chair. And he gets in trouble with the rest.
At some point, somebody is going to not like what they have to do as rookies or freshmen, but if you take away everything that someone somewhere finds "not fun" then you'll end up with nothing and nobody'll be happy. I had to do a lot of "not fun" stuff, but a lot of this stuff that people think is hazing is the best way to make something else worthwhile, or else instill the right mindset. Should we get rid of "rookie hazing" (i.e., boot camp) in the military? No, obviously - it instills the correct mindset in recruits. Same is true for lugging pads, IMO: sorry, Dez, but there is a reason, and that's to let you rookies know you're part of a team in which people do things for one another and not just themselves; to let the high-priced rookies know they put their pants on one leg at a time just like their 7th-round buddies; and to give you a way for the veterans to accept you as part of the team even though you haven't caught a single frigging pass in your NFL life.
you bring up a lot of the issues, especially in terms of the "this might be ok for person X but offensive to person Y"
and thats why this is such a big mess.
I guess my line for things is team based. If all of the rookies had to collect the footballs after practice, great, that's a team thing. But carrying people's stuff for them... I don't like. but that's just my $.02, and someone else might have totally different ideas
Roy Williams is really trying to have Dez carry his pads? Maybe 3 or 4 years ago this would be ok. Roy is holding on to his roster spot by the skin of his teeth and he is trying to act like a leader or super star now?
If Jason Witten did this and Dez said no ok that is more of a story or even Miles Austin or Tony Romo. Dez is going against Roy Williams for his spot so why should he back down? I know he hasn't played a down in the NFL but i'm pretty sure Roy Williams hasn't played a down on the field in 3 years.
Also trying to compare Dez Bryant and T.O. is not even close. T.O. maybe crazy and the "me" guy but Dez isn't in the same boat as T.O. Yet.
Here are my two cents on hazing. Yeah it sucks and it's childish but it's something you just have to do. My freshmen year of college football the upperclassmen shaved our heads and made us do a bunch of dumb stuff. I learned pretty quickly that if you just did what they said the first few days, by the end of the first week everyone pretty much left you alone. The guys who tried to act tough only got it worse.
And besides, what isn't funny about watching some poor freshmen with a freshly shaved head sing You've Lost that Loving Feeling to some hot chicks over lunch?
Just carry the damn pads, shut your mouth, and play football.