With training camp starting next week in Oxnard, California, we offer up a position-by-position preview.
TIGHT ENDS
Who’s back: Jason Witten, James Hanna, Gavin Escobar
Who they added: Geoff Swaim, Ray Hamilton
Who’s gone: None
Roster spots available: three or four
Key question: Is this the year Gavin Escobar makes a big impact?
Sorry to be wishy-washy here, but maybe. It will depend on how Escobar fares in camp. He will be given the chance to run alongside Witten when the Cowboys use their two-tight-end personnel grouping. Hanna won that job last year and did a nice job.
Escobar has improved as a blocker but his strong suit will never be as an on-the-line tight end. He has gotten bigger and a little stronger, but he is so long that it’s hard for him to win the leverage game enough to be on the line all of the time. To me, Hanna is the better of the two when the Cowboys use two tight ends, especially in the running game, and Escobar can have a decent package of plays that can use what he does best.
He has 18 catches and six touchdowns in two seasons. That’s a pretty good ratio. He can be effective running the seams and in the red zone. In effect, he can be another receiver if the Cowboys want to spread the field more. If they go with four receivers is it better to have Escobar on the field or Devin Street? It’s not Escobar’s fault the Cowboys picked him in the second round. They were supposed to make a commitment to a new style of offense, which was really supposed to be an old style of offense since they drafted Anthony Fasano and Martellus Bennett in the second round in 2006 and 2008. That didn’t work out then and it has yet to work out now.
Quick thought: Witten is entering his 13th season. At some point he has to slow down, right? As Stephen Jones talked earlier in the week about monitoring training camp reps for some players, I wonder if Witten is in that group. Does he need to grind away every day of camp to get right for the Sept. 13 opener? Probably not, but in Witten’s mind he probably believes he does. He wants every snap every day.
He probably won’t be a 90-catch tight end anymore but that is a product of the system rather than his skill. But there’s nothing to say he can’t catch 75 passes a year. Witten has never been a blazer but he has been remarkably consistent, averaging 11 yards per catch in nine of his 12 seasons. In the last two years he has seemed more nimble than four or five years ago. It speaks to how well he knows his body. He has maintained his strength to be one of the best blocking tight ends in the NFL while adding flexibility to help him create separation.
