Chaz Green must clean up technique and avoid penalties
Chaz Green is the favorite to become the Dallas Cowboys’ swing tackle this season.
But he has much room to grow after the first game action of his young NFL career. Green had three penalties called against him and gave up a sack as he started at left tackle for the Cowboys’ preseason opener against the Los Angeles Rams on Saturday.
“I thought I had a good start, did some good things,” Green said. “I think I need to stay consistent in my pass sets and in the third quarter I had some slipups. But I think I had a good start, though, first game getting my feet wet and everything, but I’ve got a lot of things to work on.”
Green didn’t play in any games last season as he recovered from offseason hip surgery. He did return to practice late in the year, but was never active for a game.
So Saturday marked his first extensive game action since he played in the Birmingham Bowl in January 2015.
And he showed some rust. He drew a holding penalty on the first series of the game, and had two consecutive penalties in the third quarter for clipping and holding.
Asked about Green’s performance, coach Jason Garrett said: “Hard to know. The initial impression was they kept calling his name for penalties and so we’ll go back and look at those. But it was a good experience for him to be out there against some of the best defensive linemen in that situation and did get a lot of snaps throughout the game so that was positive.”
Green refused to use fatigue or lack of game action in months as a reason for the penalties.
“Just clean up my technique, that’s the main thing,” Green said. “Just keep my hands inside, driving off my inside leg in pass sets. Being consistent in pass sets is the main thing.”
At the end of the day, Green said it was good to return to game action and get as many snaps as he did. He hopes to build on it going forward, and remain in position to become the Cowboys’ third tackle.
“It’s been a long road, glad I finally got out there and played some ball in front of everybody,” Green said.
This story was originally published August 14, 2016 at 12:25 AM with the headline "Chaz Green must clean up technique and avoid penalties."