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Terry Glenn, we hardly knew ye - Notes from Day 1 at Cowboys Camp

So… right.

Glenn gets the axe… is it permanent?

OXNARD, Calif. - The Terry Glenn saga is over. His tenure with the team is over as well.

The Cowboys have released the veteran wide receiver, team owner Jerry Jones announced during Friday’s afternoon practice here at training camp in Oxnard, Calif.

Jones said he met with Glenn and his agent, Jim Gould over the last few days, including conversations on Friday in attempt to figure out the best solution.

“We’ve been working for weeks with Terry’s representative, looking at how might structure something, as it pertains to the preseason, as well as going into the season,” Jones said. “At the end of the day, we’re waiving Terry this afternoon. We’re going on down the road and seeing where we are.”
Glenn joined the Cowboys in 2003 and had two 1,000-yard receiving seasons. He missed 15 games last season due to a right knee injury that included two arthroscopic surgeries.

Regardless of how it seems, this is pretty surprising. Not altogether bad, but surprising for those of us who foresaw a pleasant ending to this whole saga. I think, ultimately, what Jerry saw was the ultimate pitfalls of the deal vastly weighing down the positives. Run through them all and it’s not hard to sympathize… I don’t think any of us really realized how devastating Terry’s last knee injury was. Even with full knowledge that you didn’t draft a number two guy AND the fact that none of the others on the roster have looked like legit number two’s, they STILL pulled the trigger on this release… even AFTER Glenn agreed to sign the $500,000 injury waiver, which cleared the Cowboys of most his salary should he re-injure his leg.

He did leave the door open for Glenn to come back, so there is that. I’m just not sure how likely that scenario will be. It could easily be a case of Jerry trying to move some cap space to sign a bigger name (*cough*Boldin*cough), and leaving himself an out should the plan backfire. I just don’t know how much Terry will want to come back after this, especially after he swallowed his pride, accepted the option for lesser pay and was still rejected.

I mean, the writing is all over Jerry’s decision, here. This wasn’t a drastic move, but it certainly puts the Cowboys’ back-up receivers in a precarious position. I never thought Crayton looked comfortable as a No. 2 last year (and is it a surprise that his best years… y’know, the ones where we weren’t talking about how bad he sucked, were spend as a No. 3?), and the other guys are just too unpolished. Still, volumes spoken here

What this essentially does, though, is eliminate much of the Cowboys’ feignings at a deep threat. Opposing defenses can simply roll coverage over top of TO’s routes, umbrella a few linebackers over Witten and lock up everybody else in man… Crayton isn’t quick enough (and I’m now questioning his hands, something I thought I’d never do), Austin and Stanback aren’t proven enough and Hurd is the wild card, although his speed isn’t great either. It immediately hamstrings the offense in terms of downfield production. TO will still find creases for long gainers, sure… he did all of last year without Glenn. But this offense, all year last year, we heard about how “much better” it would be with a healthy Glenn. Those weren’t idle words, folks. It would’ve been. The only thing keeping me afloat in this situation is the knowledge that the offense thrived without TG last year. What’s far less encouraging is that it didn’t thrive in December and most importantly in January. The receiver corps isn’t weak — I’d still place it in the top half of the league, easily top 10 if you include Witten. But it could become problematic for a perspective Super Bowl contender.

What you have to consider now is this: was a healthy Terry Glenn even a possibility anymore? We’ll never know if and when he signs with another team or simply calls it quits. If it’s the latter, Jerry made a frugal but judicious decision. If not, and Glenn starts pulling a Joey Galloway on us, then it’s time to get mad. Until then, I can’t question it too much. After all, we never got to see him run routes in training camp. How much can you question a decision you can’t tangibly critique?

I’d like to wish him a pleasant farewell, although on the surface this looks like a bit of sour grapes. Even after twisting his arm into taking the $500,000 clause, they still cut him. Not the way I’d like to be treated by a club to whom I’d given a number of good years.

One final interesting point of note is that Anquan Boldin, the star wide-out from the perennially awful Cardinals, is throwing a tantrum and putting Arizona in an uncomfortable bind. Some organizations (like the Bengals with Chad Johnson) might stand pat on this issue, refusing to deal him and forcing him to wallow in his own contract. I don’t think the Cards are that kind of organization — if they can off-load money, the Bidwells are all for it. That’s why I’m keeping my eye on that situation here. However unlikely it is at this point (the Cowboys currently sport $10.5 mil of clear cap money), never count it out. With Glenn out of the picture, everybody and their momma now knows that the Cowboys have nobody to adequately pair with TO at wide out. A Boldin-TO pairing would be every bit as scary as Randy Moss-Wes Welker or anything else the league can throw out. Plus, Boldin has plenty more quality seasons in him.

Who knows, but something to keep an eye on. Onto some updates from the first day of camp:

• Reading this from Tim MacMahon’s blog wasn’t entirely surprising, but was certainly wholly deflating… c’mon Roy… on the first day? : SS Roy Williams fell down after getting beat on a crossing route by TE Tony Curtis …yikes. And it was Tony Curtis of all people.
• Marc Columbo caught a TD off a fake FG attempt, prompting cheers from the crowd. This reinforces why I enjoy Redball’s offense. Much like the Patriots, Garrett uses what’s around him to utilize the best possible combination. You’ve got a square peg and a round hole? Parcells says jam that sucker in there til it fits. Garrett’s approach is to shave it into a malleable format so it… you know… actually fits. Something small, but something exciting.
• TO burned Ant Henry on a deep crossing route for a touchdown. I know it’s TO, but I think Pacman is going to make Henry look a lot slower than he did at this time last year. Competition is a funny thing that way.
• Not much from the first day (no pads), but how exciting is it to finally have some action? Certainly more to come on the Glenn story, but man… it’s here, folks.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 4:57 pm and is filed under The Cowboy Roundup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.