Williams' Shoulders Just Got Heavier

Ah, only a few days into training camp and already there is drama with deep, subtle meanings. Coming out of the Dallas Cowboys' camp, the topic on the surface is that of rookie hazing. Wide receiver Roy E. Williams told rookie wideout Dez Bryant to carry his pads, which Bryant refused to do. This led to a brief distraction, but ultimately the spat was resolved. With the problem behind the team now, there were strong implications made. And for Williams, they aren't good.

First, let's look at hazing. The event has been a long-standing tradition in sports, especially football. In Dallas alone the lineman are often given very attractive haircuts, and former coach Bill Parcells would make the rookies fetch him water during practice. Heck, on my high school baseball team the freshmen carried all the heavy equipment and then some, then when they could carry no more the sophomores would get the rest. It's just a part of sports. Now, if the required rituals could possibly cause injury, that's one thing. Athletes get hurt in stupid ways enough as is. But to make a player get water, do an embarrassing song-and-dance routine, or carry pads -- activities which only baseball players could find a way to get hurt -- the rookie should just suck it up and do it. Even tying players to the goalpost with toilet paper is fairly harmless. (Williams, by the way, said he will not ask Bryant to carry his pads. However, when the rookie pays for a team dinner, Williams threatened to be "a little more hungry and a little more thirsty.") The acts are harmless, it is not personal since it happens to every rookie, and it's a right of way. Bryant used the ignorance card and said he was unaware of the rituals, which might have come from the big man upstairs (Jerry Jones). It had to, considering that's a joke. Undoubtedly his high school and college teams made the freshmen do stuff just like everywhere else. Plus, he's friends with Deion Sanders, who was probably the Michael Jordan of hazing. To claim to be unaware of its existence in sports is a lie, and the fact of the matter is he should have carried the pads and gotten it over with. That was not the case here, though, as coach Wade Phillips publicly favored Bryant in this debate, saying:

"I don't believe we should need to initiate anybody. They need to come out and play football and be a part of the team... If [hazing] makes a guy uncomfortable, he shouldn't have to."

Here's where things could become cloudy for Williams. On the surface this could be a coach simply saying the right thing to protect his rookie wideout. After all, Bryant hasn't played in a game since September 19 of last year, and if he is more concerned with hazing than catching passes, it could be detrimental to a team that has been looking for a quality #2 receiver. But the far more likely case is that Phillips would choose Bryant over Williams, and therefore sided with the better player with far more potential. If it was Tony Romo, Jason Witten, or Miles Austin, all among the best at their respective positions, telling Bryant to carry their pads, I believe Phillips would have told Bryant to shut up and carry them. Williams, though, is not a star. Last year he only caught 38 passes and did not surpass 600 yards, while being credited with eight drops. In ten games the year before he only grabbed 19 balls for a shade under 200 yards. He has been an overwhelming disappointment in his time in the Big D, and most writers say they will be shocked if Williams, not Bryant, is the number two receiver by Week 1. Williams himself admits that Bryant is an amazing talent, saying, "The dude is scary. The dude is good and he doesn't even know it yet. Once the light bulb goes on he will probably be the best in the league. He's a man among boys." Even he knows it is only a matter of time before Bryant joins Austin as the starters, and soon becomes Romo's go-to guy.

This goes far beyond Phillips siding with Bryant over something as trivial as carrying pads. This is Phillips knowing that Bryant will soon surpass Williams on the depth chart, if he hasn't done so already, and is basically telling Williams that his place in the Cowboys organization is not as prized as he had thought. (Hmm.... doesn't that sound awfully familiar to another certain receiver who played for Dallas? One who just signed with the Bengals? Just thought it was worth mentioning.) Calling the 8th year man out of Texas an afterthought doesn't seem appropriate, since he hasn't made a significant impact on the field. I'm thinking he's a "never-thought", and soon enough him and his remaining 5-year/$45 million contract will be out of Dallas.