Who Will Be The Dallas Cowboy’s Starting Safeties? (Part One)
Landry Hat readers are some of the most passionate Dallas Cowboy fans on the planet. That’s why we have stocked our writing staff full of those same die-hard fans. And in an effort to be sure we are catering to our reader’s needs, we have restarted our series of answering your fan questions. Here is our selected reader question for this week:
"Coolec3 via the comments section asked: “Who do you guys think will be the starting safeties? Also, has Bill Nagy shown any talent at center? It seems like most Cowboys media people only talk about Costa. And who are the go-ahead picks at #3 and #4 WR?”"
Now here are the answers provided by the experts from our writing staff:
Todd Toombs, Senior Writer: “The question about the safety position is a good one – not sure we will have a clue until we get into training camp. The Cowboys currently have 6 safeties on their roster – a sign that they aren’t really sure about the position either. Brodney Pool, of course, was brought in to replace Abram Elam, but is not a lock to start. We’re hearing some good things about the development of Danny McCray and Barry Church and that one or both of them may be ready to take the next step. I would expect Gerald Sensabaugh to start at one spot and Pool, McCray, or Church to compete for the other. Rookie Matt Johnson showed promise in the OTAs but I would not expect him to make much of a contribution this year except on special teams.”
Jonathan Barger, Senior Writer: “Gerald Sensabaugh is a lock at FS (or SS) and the biggest question mark is who will start besides him. I want to see Matt Johnson start. Poole is Abe Elam like, and Barry Church couldn’t oust Abe Elam for a spot. This kid didn’t play at a big time school, but 17 career interceptions is nothing to turn your nose up to. Nagy has taken some reps at center, but he is still with the 2nd team. Maybe this will all change once pads are on, and maybe Garrett is giving Costa a chance to keep his job unless someone beats him out for it. Sadly, there are no “go-ahead” picks for WR. No one has jumped off of anyone’s radar so far. Andre Holmes is a lock for the roster because he is Jerry’s pet cat, but as for 4th WR I would say it’s a toss up between Danny Coale and Dwayne Harris.”
Levi Glenn, Staff Writer: “I am pretty confident that Poole and Sensabaugh will have the starting safety positions. Sensabaugh wouldn’t have got his extension last year or have been released if he wasn’t. I also believe Poole was brought over by Ryan and he has big plans for him. I don’t think we will get anything out of Nagy until pre-season, there has been to much attention brought to other players and veteran O-linemen don’t attract much attention. Ogletree will definitely have one of those spots but the other one will have to be decided towards the end of pre-season. I expect Radway to have it only if he has fully recovered.”
Joe Owens, Senior Writer: “I’ll touch on the safety part of the question by saying I believe the Cowboys paid Brodney Pool more as an insurance policy but that Barry Church and Matt Johnson will actually be in the mix next to Gerald Sensabaugh in different packages according to each ones best attributes. If the competition between Church and Pool is even remotely close Pool probably won’t survive final cuts and it will have only cost the Cowboys $100,000. The center position quite frankly scares me all together but Phil Costa being the starter last year I don’t see Nagy being anything but depth at the position. And my money is on Raymond Radway with Andre Holmes getting the inside the twenty snaps at wideout due to his height mismatch.”
Checkout the rest of our experts answers tomorrow in part two of this article! And don’t forget, if you liked any particular answer by an expert to checkout their other stories by clicking on their names!