SAN ANTONIO - Jesse Holley beat out 11 other guys on SpikeTV's "4th and Long" to get a shot at being a Dallas Cowboy. Now the wide receiver and UNC product must prove himself to be more valuable than 27 more to make the 53-man regular season roster.
When the Cowboys held their first training camp practice of 2009 on Wednesday, Holley got a true taste of what that challenge will involve.
Holley certainly has tougher competition in training camp than the group of NFL rejects he squared off against on the Michael Irvin-hosted show. But in other ways, an NFL training camp could never be as brutally tiring as some of the things through which Irvin put the contestants.
"I know at some point in time a horn will blow, and we will have to change periods," Holley said, alluding to an episode where Irvin put the Cowboys hopefuls through five non-stop hours of conditioning drills. "The show has given me a tremendous jump on being conditioned, a tremendous jump on being ready to expect anything and to perform at any given time."
Holley may be physically ready to play, or even climb Everest for that matter, but because of the show's airing schedule, he was not allowed to practice with the team until the final episode aired in mid-July. Since the show wrapped filming in April, he's put in work on his own, including eight-hour film sessions with former Cowboys coach and "4th and Long" coach-judge Joe Avezzano at Valley Ranch.
But if watching film alone made a better football player, practice would be held in movie theaters and, as head coach Wade Phillips pointed out, Holley missed valuable teaching time in the team's OTAs.
"You can look at all our rookies in the OTAs and you can see [linebacker] Brandon Williams and those guys, they really came on because they were being taught our system and what to do and so forth," Phillips said. "It will probably take him a little while to catch up, but if he's athletic enough and works hard enough, he'll catch up."
Not only does missing that time hurt Holley's understanding of the playbook, but it also prevents the coaches, and quarterbacks, from familiarizing themselves with him. Wednesday's practice session marked the first time Holley caught a pass from a quarterback in a Cowboys uniform, and Phillips has been so engrossed in handling the defense that he didn't get a chance to even watch Holley much.
But Holley is determined to overcome those obstacles. He knows he's lucky to be here, but he knows luck won't put him on a regular-season roster. Irvin said that team need played a major role in picking Holley over special teams stud Andrew Hawkins and defensive back Ahmaad Smith, so Holley knows that had the Cowboys been receiver-heavy, he'd be out of football altogether, training to be a police officer in Raleigh, N.C. Holley's frequent conversations with Smith, Hawkins, and show participant Donte Gamble remind him of what he gained and they lost. He knows that he owes it to himself, they guys he beat, Irvin, and especially the Cowboys to succeed, so his goals are set high and simply stated:
"Anything less than making this team is uncivilized."
Home | Email | Print | Register for New Alerts | RSS
