Thursday, August 06, 2009

DMN: Wednesday's Dallas Cowboys camp report

By Todd Archer
From Staff Reports

Observation deck
• Nice to see some offensive and defensive linemen work on catching kickoffs. During special teams drills, short kicks were done in which the linemen had to use a fair catch. Marcus Dixon, Montrae Holland and Cory Procter caught their attempts, but Pat McQuistan and Ryan Gibbons had a case of the drops.

• Tony Romo was intercepted twice in the two-minute drill in the afternoon – the first one when he tried fire a pass to WR Roy Williams that CB Mike Mickens deflected and S DeAngelo Smith picked off. S Patrick Watkins came down with a throw to TE Jason Witten on the final play of the drill.

• Offensive assistant Wes Phillips joined specialists Nick Folk , David Buehler and L.P. Ladouceur in juggling a soccer ball with their feet in the morning workout.

• For the first time, a defensive player jumped offside and was replaced for a play. Marcus Spears left early and Jason Hatcher came in for him.

• CB Courtney Brown had a difficult time in one-on-one drills. He was beaten deep by Julian Hawkins while he kept waiting for Hawkins to make a cut.

• Keep an eye on rookie LB Victor Butler. He had a sack of Jon Kitna in the morning workout and has been a consistent threat during team drills. The consistency says a lot because Butler missed most of the off-season because he had not graduated from Oregon State.

• Romo's best throw in the morning session came on a perfectly placed ball over Miles Austin's shoulder in the corner of the end zone. Austin did a good job of shielding Mickens from even making an attempt on the ball.

• The first-team defense did not give Kitna much time to throw. On three out of five plays, Anthony Spencer, DeMarcus Ware and Jay Ratliff were in his face before he could set up.