OXNARD, Calif. — It was my first Cowboys training camp 31 summers ago, right up the 101 highway in Thousand Oaks. I couldn’t believe that I was asking questions about safety Dextor Clinkscale every day (he didn’t show up and no one knew his whereabouts). And Tom Landry sure couldn’t believe he was fielding those questions.
OXNARD, Calif. — It was my first Cowboys training camp 31 summers ago, right up the 101 highway in Thousand Oaks. I couldn’t believe that I was asking questions about safety Dextor Clinkscale every day (he didn’t show up and no one knew his whereabouts). And Tom Landry sure couldn’t believe he was fielding those questions.
But he answered them the best he could. With class.
You can’t say the same for Jason Garrett, the man who has coached this team longer than anyone short of Landry. His performance Tuesday, just a few hours after it had been made clear that Lucky Whitehead, in fact, was never arrested in Virginia, was pathetic.
While the police in Prince William County issued a long apology for the mistaken identity arrest, the Cowboys are too big for such actions. At least that’s how Garrett and the Jones family see it.
“Yesterday we made a decision that we thought was in the best interest of the Dallas Cowboys. We’re going to stand by that and move forward,” Garrett said.
Over and over. And over.
He only deviated briefly, letting us know that “We know a lot of things about our players that you don’t know” and suggesting Lucky needed a fresh start elsewhere.
Yet he didn’t need that fresh start Monday morning when he participated in the first walkthrough practice here. It was only after reports of a June shoplifting arrest surfaced that Whitehead was forced to meet with Garrett and was released before the afternoon workout.
Cowboys justice has never moved so swiftly. Too bad the police muffed the arrest.
The way I see it, Whitehead has only two problems: He needs to find out who it is that’s walking around Virginia with his social security number. And he needs a football team.
The police in Prince William County and the Dallas Cowboys? They have real credibility issues.
But at least the police apologized for their mistake. The police confirmed that the man they arrested had no ID but gave Lucky’s name, birthdate and social security number. Beyond that, well, I guess the police thought he looked something like Lucky and they let it go at that.
Not the worst blunder by police in this country but certainly a bad one.
And what it led to, of course, was more embarrassment for the Cowboys on the opening day of training camp. It was somewhat reminiscent of the Quincy Carter release here 13 years ago. Not the same in importance to the team, naturally, but all of a sudden a player is just made to disappear.
Whitehead paid the price, not for his arrest, but for Damien Wilson’s arrest and Ezekiel Elliott’s various transgressions and Nolan Carroll’s DUI and the suspensions of pass rushers related to the league’s drug policy. The Cowboys were sick of being the butt of jokes and Whitehead getting popped for shoplifting was the last straw, so they brought the hammer down.
Only problem is that Whitehead didn’t tell them because — according to police — it wasn’t him.
Do they apologize and bring him back?
Hardly.
Perhaps there is enough in Whitehead’s file (there are some definite issues with his whole $20,000 ransom-for-his-dog story) to say he needed to go, anyway? That hardly seems fair, given that we know it wouldn’t have happened if not for the false impression that he had been arrested in Virginia.
With the drafting of Ryan Switzer to return punts, Whitehead’s days were numbered, but those days should have been given to him in the form of training camp and pre-season games.
Instead, the Cowboys wanted to step out of character and look like they’re tough on crime and that they have this nebulous “standard” that Garrett brags about but declines to define. Whitehead had failed to live up to the standard according to Garrett.
But the ones who really failed were the team’s investigators.
“We’re gathering information and we’ll respond accordingly,” Garrett had said.
But the police got it wrong. Then the Cowboys got it wrong.
It’s one more reminder that when the Cowboys and Garrett brag about doing “due diligence” just as they did with Greg Hardy, they frequently don’t have a clue what they’re doing.