Babe Laufenberg, Dallas Cowboys radio color analyst and former NFL quarterback, answered questions about the team in a chat Wednesday. Here are some highlights.
Is their a teammate that you've played with that reminds you of J. Randle? There's some ability there but he seems more dedicated to self-destruction?
Oh, if you have been around enough NFL locker rooms, you are going to run across some knuckleheads. You don't find many wallflowers in the NFL. These are high energy people and sometimes that energy gets misdirected. Won't pretend to know Joe Randle well, but he struck me as a good kid who lacked direction in his life. I am a believer in the saying, "It takes a village to raise a child," and I wonder how many people lived in Joe Randle's village. I hope he gets its straightened out, because now his issues are much bigger than football. He was making career altering decisions. They are now life altering.
How would you compare the Aikman/Irvin connection with Romo/Bryant?
Great question. The similarities between #9 and #8 is how accurate they are. Really precision passers. I actually think that Romo's accuracy gets overlooked. Did you know that Romo has set the NFL record of 20 consecutive games (and counting) of completing 60% of his passes? You know how hard it is because no one has ever done it before. As for the two 88s- Dez is the more physically gifted receiver, Michael the better route runner. But the one characteristic that both have is they love to compete. Live for it.
Should the Cowboys go after Johnny Manziel!?
Was thinking about the character juxtaposition of the week Manziel and Zack Martin had, especially with the talk of selecting Manziel in the spot where the Cowboys took Martin. Martin went toe to toe with Suh during the Miami game, one of the better interior battles I have seen, and didn't give an inch. The kind of performance you want your entire team to look at and then say, "There is your goal. There is your role model as how to play this game." And Manziel is getting benched. Every time I hear Manziel say, "I get it now," he proves he really doesn't. Why I had him as a third rounder.
Garrett has basically worked his entire coaching career with Romo so how do you see him doing developing a young QB which presumably he will have to do in the next few years?
In order to "develop" a QB, you have to draft one. That would be a good place to start. But Garrett did a lot of good things for Romo early in his career. And Romo is constantly looking for ways to improve. So someone is going to have a good room to learn in and good people to learn from, with Wade Wilson as QB coach, Scott Linehan as coordinator, and Garrett as your head coach.