You have to be creative in today’s NFL. Gone are the days of lining up and hoping your 11 players can simply out-physical the ones across from them. Today’s game is all about exploiting matchups and working as creatively as possible in the name of identifying whatever advantages you can exploit.
It is our collective hope that Brian Schottenheimer can be the man to deliver on this disposition to the Dallas Cowboys as he is the team’s new head coach and offensive play-caller. We are about a week into
training camp and motion has rained down on the offense which suggests Schotty will do what he can to sprinkle in some razzle-dazzle, but he may be thinking beyond that as well.
Coach Schottenheimer sat down with 105.3 The Fan last week to discuss the state of the team, camp and everything in between. Near the end of the interview he was asked how players can go from an outside shot to make the roster when camp begins to being a part of the final 53 and answered it by discussing versatility. Schotty noted that the Cowboys really value cross-training their players and mentioned how players like KaVontae Turpin, Hunter Luepke and DaRon Bland are great examples of not just doing one specific thing.
It was then that Schottenheimer brought up third-year offensive lineman Asim Richards. Many have assumed that Richards is the go-to swing tackle on the team (or will be at least) and obviously there is a level of multiplicity involved in that role as you have to be ready for either tackle role.
But it was something other than tackle that Schottenheimer was talking about (something close in proximity, though). He noted that the Cowboys are working to give Richards some jumbo tight end looks.
“We’ve got jumbo tight ends we’re training. You look at Asim Richards. He’s not playing just tackle. He’s playing tight end. Well how does he get with Lunda Wells, and how do we make that happen?”
To be clear, this hardly suggests that Richards is going to be running routes on the regular or that he is going to be a legitimate part of any real offensive gameplan. What’s more is that it is not exactly uncommon for NFL teams to have offensive linemen report eligible on a given play in the name of general creativity.
But this was a bit of an identification as to who could play that role for the Cowboys. It may have been an innocuous comment and not something we ever see come to fruition, but keep it in mind as the season moves that Asim Richards could be asked to do more than block.
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