Oxnard Observation Deck: Wednesday edition

Here are some players of the day and observations from practice....

Offensive player of the day: WR Miles Austin. Seemed to catch everything and pull in the tough passes. He had a leaping catch on an out pattern during team drills in the afternoon and fought off Anthony Henry trying to hammer the ball out of his hands on a short out in the afternoon.

Defensive player of the day: We go with safety Roy Williams. He made a play in coverage and we are here to recognize that. He picked off Richard Bartel near the end of practice and raced toward the end zone.

Observations....

* Holy cow!!: Did I really see this? Felix Jones dropped a pass. Mr. Soft Hands couldn't haul in a wide open pass. He had too much open space he was ready to burst through after the catch.

* Working the nose: Jay Ratliff has moved back to his nose tackle position. Only for now?

* Up-and-down: Maybe Tony Romo was nervous about tonight's Hard Knocks debut. He was a little wobbly and way off target on some throws and intercepted by All-Oxnard great Evan Oglesby.

* Odd realization: Does T.O. every really jump for passes? I don't think so. Tell me if you have seen it. He had a small leaping catch coming back to get an underthrown duck by Romo.

* Interception fest: Evan Oglesby picked off Romo and Bobby Carpenter, Pacman Jones and Roy Williams picked off Bartel and Tearrius George picked off Jeff Terrell. Brad Johnson stayed clean.

* Celebrity row: The VIPs section of the sidelines is starting to get really crowded. Dennis Miller, Magic Johnson, Jamie Foxx, Rob Lowe in the last two days. ...Sorry, but you can't get this kind of action in San Antonio.

* Struggling: QB Richard Bartel threw three interceptions in practice. Ouch.

* Staying near perfect: K Nick Folk continues to be someone Cowboys fans shouldn't worry about. He was 7-of-8 on FGs tries Tuesday. His only miss hit the right upright from 44 yards.

* Nice shirt: Terence Newman modeling the T.O. line of T-shirts with: "ipick"

- Rick Herrin

Photo: Ron Jenkins

Comments

[Grant]

T.O. jumps for passes all the time, at least from my memory of watching him play in games. He's pretty good at the one-handed, leaping fade to the corner of the endzone while backpedaling (though the pushout rule change may make that play-call less appealing). I've also seen him needlessly jump for a couple of balls and drop them as a result.

But I do know what you mean about him rarely needing to jump for balls. T.O. gets unbelievably open. Sometimes I think he got himself a mojo from Jerry Rice or something. Those two, they have a preternatural ability to not only lose their man and find open space, but to do so in a way that the other defenders' attention is fixed elsewhere. It hardly seems possible that T.O. should ever be 20 yards from the nearest defender when he catches the ball downfield, but it happens all the time.

[LL live from The ATX]

Another place says it was the 4th string qb...but whatever...we can only hope Roy gets to go against 3rd and 4th string qb's all year...and that putrid junk about him leading the team in forced fumbles...it is a lot of walkthroughs and half speed and he is just being a nuisance...he won't be close enough to anyone in actual games to force fumbles...his energies would be better spent learning to get in position and tackling...all that strip junk is feeding him being out of position...