Cowboys Embrace Texas-Sized Expectations as Training Camp Opens

SAN ANTONIO -- They do everything bigger in Texas. But the asteroid of expectations bearing down on the Dallas Cowboys seems a little extreme, even for America's Team.

A checklist:

• The Cowboys turn 50 years old this year and will spend the 2010 season honoring their glorious history and an all-time record that equals the best winning percentage in NFL history.

• Emmitt Smith, the former Cowboy, icon and league's career rushing leader, will be inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame next month, the same weekend the Cowboys open the NFL preseason against the Cincinnati Bengals.

• Super Bowl XLV, where the league champion will be crowned Feb. 6, 2011, will be played at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, at the palace owner Jerry Jones built and opened last season. With a capacity in excess of 105,000, the region's first Super Bowl is expected to draw the largest crowd in NFL history.

• Which brings us to the actually Dallas pro football team. The '10 Cowboys will christen the season Saturday by being the first club to open training camp. About 20,000 fans turned out Friday night at the Alamodome for a free concert and pep rally to see their mighty campers paraded onto the stage. The Cowboys return 20 of 22 starters to a team that went 11-5 last season, won the NFC East behind top-10 offenses and defenses, claimed the club's first playoff victory in 14 years, and in April added a potential game-breaker in rookie wideout and first-round pick Dez Bryant, out of Oklahoma State. The Cowboys are just about everybody's preseason pick to represent the NFC in that February football festival that will play out in Big D.



Big. Bigger. Biggest. Maybe even best.

Added up: "Bowl or Bust," baby.

Jones, the flamboyant owner, president and general manager, wouldn't want it any other way.

"There's just not a whole lot of things not to like about the upcoming season," Jones said Friday. "But we all know the game and journey that's ahead of us. That's important."

Because, Jones added, the Cowboys need only to go back to their last game to give perspective to visions of confetti flying around North Texas some seven months from now. As good as Dallas was last season, quarterback Tony Romo and friends were emasculated by 40-year-old Brett Favre and his buds in the divisional round of the playoffs, falling 34-3 at Minnesota.

That's where the head coach comes in. It may have taken more than 20 minutes to get to Wade Phillips during Friday's news conference to open camp -- the Ford representative trumpeting his automaker's sponsorship of Cowboys camp, and Jones were the opening acts -- but Phillips eventually got to speak to the enormous anticipation (some might use the word "pressure") his club will take into the season.

"Our team is confident, but I think we're realistic," said Phillips, who had the NFL's No. 2 offense and No. 9 defense last season. "You can talk a lot now and say you're going to do these things, but really what we're going to do is practice hard and try to get better every day. ... I think having the great tradition helps this football team. We want to draw from that. And I think the near-past -- last year -- we made some great strides and we're pointed in the right direction. But there are no guarantees."

And there are some questions, too.

Dallas cut long-time left tackle Flozell Adams over the offseason and will turn Romo's blind side over to Doug Free, whose seven starts in three pro seasons all came at right tackle. Free safety Alan Ball will get his first crack at a full-time starting role and the top contender for kickoff, David Buehler, a kickoff specialist last season, never has attempted a field goal.

Worried? Dropped in on some front office guys at other venues and ask if they'd like to have the Cowboys' problems.

"We have a lot starters coming back who played well and are coming into the prime of their careers," Phillips said.

"Our team is confident, but I think we're realistic. You can talk a lot now and say you're going to do these things, but really what we're going to do is practice hard and try to get better every day."
--Wade Phillips Those same players, plus virtually the same coaching staff that was together last season, understand that the spotlight will always be brighter (and hotter) with a star on your helmet in the heart of Texas.

"If you're a veteran coach or player on the Dallas Cowboys you're used to some things apart from the next play being called," Jones said. "I can't do one thing about a Super Bowl being played out there in that stadium and I really can't do anything about Emmitt going into the Hall of Fame and that game up there. What we might be able to do something about us getting the most out of this training camp then lining up against Washington."

The Cowboys open Sept. 12 on the road against the Redskins.

They open camp at 12:01 p.m. Saturday.

"It's not the Super Bowl at our place -- it's this next practice," Phillips said when asked about his message to his team. "We're going to take a right-now approach."

He has to.

America's Fanbase does not.

One way or another, this is going to be big.

Really big.