Cowboys open camp ‘feeling good’ about their team and super chances

By most accounts, the Dallas Cowboys are an improved team and seemed poised to make a Super Bowl run.

They finished one game shy of the conference title game with a controversial road loss to the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Divisional playoffs last season.

They begin training camp practice Thursday with a healthy quarterback in Tony Romo, a happy receiver in Dez Bryant and an upgraded roster, thanks to stable of newcomers who should have an immediate impact, led by defensive end Greg Hardy and rookies Randy Gregory, Byron Jones and La’el Collins.

But while team vice president Stephen Jones acknowledges the Cowboys are coming off their most successful off-season in years, he will reserve final judgment until after the season, one he hopes will end with “super” success.

“Your final grade is your record. It’s impossible to grade the off-season when you’re trying to make your team better.” Jones said on Wednesday during the annual state-of-the-team news conference to open training camp. “I think we accomplished our goal. It’s like a draft class. At the end of the day, it’s how they perform over the next two or three years.

“We added personnel in the places where we needed to be better. The personnel looks better on paper. We’ll see how it plays out.”

The Cowboys, however, are not openly talking about playing in the Super Bowl for the first time in 20 years — including owner Jerry Jones, who is prone to hyperbole.

But Jones doesn’t deny feeling good about the Cowboys’ chances of having a special season after last year’s breakthrough campaign.

“I think that we certainly have reason to be optimistic,” he said. “We can look at the way our team evolved last year.

“That’s not hard to do because the guys who are tasting it, experienced it last year. Those players are in camp. We’re not having to sit here and talk to guys about how it was in 1990. These guys saw what hard work and this type situation will do. That certainly has a chance to happen this year.”

If it does happen, it won’t be about the Cowboys picking up where they left off last year. Coach Jason Garrett has made it clear to the team that they have to define themselves all over again.

He has preached the message of starting from ground zero since the beginning of the off-season and it will continue in training camp.

“We really don’t believe that you build on something from the previous year,” Garrett said. “This year’s team is different than last year’s team, and we all have to understand that. That started way back in April when we got together in our off-season on the first day.

“That was probably the first words out of my mouth in our first team meeting. We have to go back to work. We have to lay the foundation for this football team, this 2015 Dallas Cowboys football team. We have to earn it all over again. We earn it day by day with the work that we put in.”

The Cowboys believe they have a good starting point after accomplishing almost all of their goals in the off-season, save for a serious upgrade at running back to replace 2014 NFL leading rusher DeMarco Murray, who signed with the Philadelphia Eagles in free agency.

Signing Bryant to a long-term contract extension and avoiding his training camp holdout tops the list of success stories.

Jerry Jones and Garrett expressed confidence in the stable of running backs in training camp, especially Joseph Randle, Darren McFadden and Lance Dunbar. They believe that group has the potential to get the job done with Randle and McFadden handling first and second down and Dunbar serving as the third-down back.

Still, the group is largely unproven and remains the biggest question mark.

Stephen Jones said he will continue to look for help and won’t hesitate to make a move at the end of training camp or before the start of the season.

“There are always things we are working to improve upon,” Stephen Jones said. “I’m sure there is going to be somebody on the 53 that is not out here right now if not a couple of somebodys. We will have to see how that goes.

“Overall, we accomplished our goals. We executed on a plan. I must say we feel good about our football team.”

This story was originally published July 29, 2015 at 9:24 PM with the headline "Cowboys open camp ‘feeling good’ about their team and super chances."