IRVING, Texas (AP) -The season was all of 11 minutes old and new Cowboys special teams coach Joe DeCamillis already could’ve been lobbying Jerry Jones for a raise.
He sure had the proof.
Dallas returned the opening kickoff 36 yards and capped the drive with a 51-yard field goal. Then the Cowboys teed it up and booted the ball into the back of the end zone for a touchback, something that didn’t happen once last season. Tampa Bay ended that drive by going for a field goal – and Dallas blocked it.
By game’s end, the Cowboys had two more touchbacks, a 1-0 record and a pretty good idea that the investment into upgrading the special teams was money well spent, especially the part that went to “Joe D.”
“He’s a mastermind,” said safety Gerald Sensabaugh, who played for DeCamillis in Jacksonville the last two years and also made the move to Dallas. “He knows the personnel to put at certain positions to make plays. He’s going to demand a lot, but we’re going to have fun, too.”
mpressive when you consider what he’s been through since joining the Cowboys.
When the team’s indoor practice facility collapsed in May, DeCamillis broke two vertebrae in his neck. Just 16 days later, he was on the practice field for the start of offseason workouts, wearing a neck brace and screaming into a bullhorn.
He remained in the stiff collar until midway through training camp. He’s still trying to get his energy level back to where it was, but he does a great job of hiding it. Besides, he’d rather be talking about the need for progress his group has made – and how much farther they have to go.
“You have to find what your guys do best and fit that to them,” DeCamillis said Thursday. “You’ve got to try to find what motivates them.”
Teams often describe special teams as the third unit, equal in importance to offense and defense, yet rarely is it treated that way. Other than the kicker, punter and deep snapper, most spots go to backups and rookies.
The Cowboys showed a new commitment to the unit by hiring DeCamillis and by spending a fifth-round draft pick on kickoff specialist David Buehler. They drafted other guys they thought could contribute right away on special teams and changed their practice schedule to make special teams the first 20 minutes of every session.
or an upgrade over last season, when McBriar missed 10 games because of a broken punting foot and Folk handled the kickoffs in less-than-spectacular fashion, aiming for the sidelines inside the 10 because he couldn’t reach the back of the end zone.
Now in his 16th year in charge of special teams – having also done so for the Giants, Falcons and Jaguars – DeCamillis brought more just a new kickoff strategy. He also injected an attitude toward special teams not seen around this club since the mid-1990s, when Joe Avezzano’s units fought for the field position that helped Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin win three Super Bowls.
“He’s very knowledgeable and a very, very intense individual – and that’s probably an understatement,” said linebacker Keith Brooking, who spent nine years with DeCamillis in Atlanta. “He demands the very best from his players. If you are not playing to that level, he will exhaust himself to get you to that level.”
How far will he go?
“He and I have had a couple of disputes, a couple of altercations,” Brooking said, laughing. “I won’t go into detail on what took place, the physicality of the altercations, but it was pretty intense. … We were smiling about it right after the game, but that’s what happens when two guys are intense and have a passion for the game.”
level and keep improving week to week.” That’s why he praised his guys for playing hard, but not great, in the opener.
“You want to be careful about telling guys `you’re great’ after one game,” he said. “There’s 15 more games, so we’ve got a long way to go. They saw on film that we’re going to have to improve some things and I think they’re going to work to do that.”
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