Rolando McClain: "Im Not 20 Anymore!"
POINT MUGU, CALIF. -- Questions regarding Rolando McClain"s future with the Cowboys weren"t resolved upon the team"s arrival in Southern California.
They were heightened.
The enigmatic middle linebacker failed to show for the charter flight to training camp Thursday afternoon even though he was listed on the team"s manifest. Head coach Jason Garrett deflected questions about McClain"s status by indicating the club would address the issue in its opening news conference Friday.
A source said McClain has not been cut. But his absence ensures those internal discussions will continue.
The players are scheduled to take physicals Friday morning at 8 o"clock (PDT). The first team meeting is six hours later. Those are the deadlines for McClain and all players to report to the team"s training camp site in Oxnard.
McClain is already saddled with a 10-game suspension to open the season for violating the NFL"s substance abuse policy. He skipped the majority of the Cowboys" offseason program, which is voluntary, to stay at his home in Alabama. When he reported to the team"s mandatory minicamp in June, a club official said he was 20 to 25 pounds over his playing weight.
Garrett constantly demands that players hold themselves and their teammates accountable. He preaches passion and insists that everyone pull in the same direction, a message that takes on even more weight when a team is coming off a 4-12 season.
How can Garrett look his players in the eye with any conviction if he allows this behavior to continue? It undermines the culture he has worked so hard to put in place. Is that worth allowing McClain the opportunity to play a few games late in the season?
The Cowboys resurrected McClain"s career two years ago and he responded by infusing a dreadful defense with a level of talent and physicality it desperately lacked. McClain opened last season with a four-game suspension, but it made sense to go forward with him considering his previous performance.
Now, it makes no sense.
There are as many questions about the defense heading into this training camp as there were in 2014. The difference is that McClain can"t provide an immediate impact given the length of his suspension. His contributions last season did nothing to abate a defensive decline that played a part in the team"s worst record in 27 years.
McClain isn"t a bad guy in the locker room. But he"s not a leader.
That actually gave him some cover the last two seasons. The coaching staff could tolerate and manage his disdain for practice because he didn"t influence his teammates. McClain was a talented outlier, an exception to the hard-working rule the majority of the team"s best players laid down.
No one deserves cover after last season. The team"s best players must lead with their attitude and performance. A player who will miss the first two-and-a-half months of the season and has suggested aloud to players and club employees that he might retire is a luxury the Cowboys can no longer afford.
McClain"s suspension, along with those of defensive ends Randy Gregory and DeMarcus Lawrence, has put the Cowboys in an unenviable position in more ways than one. Three suspended players means the franchise must pay up to $250,000 under the NFL"s remittance policy.
The money, which is put back into the league"s operating costs for its rehabilitation program, doesn"t impact the salary cap. It"s a fine levied outside of the player payroll.
The Cowboys can carve out additional salary cap room by cutting McClain. But at this point, it shouldn"t be about the money. It"s about the message Garrett and the Jones family must deliver to start training camp.
That"s more valuable than anything Rolando McClain can give this team this season.
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Source: http://sportsday.dallasnews.com/dallas-cowboys/cowboys/2016/07/28/cowboys-lb-rolando-mcclain-team-charter-training-camp-yet-released
