The Dallas Cowboys remain confident that, if third-year cornerback Morris Claiborne can stay healthy, he is fully capable of living up to the expectations the team had for him when they traded up to land him with the sixth overall pick two years ago. Granted, that’s a pretty big “if.”
Claiborne has missed seven games in his first two NFL seasons--including six last year, as he dealt with shoulder and hamstring issues--and, midway through the 2013 campaign, he lost his starting job to Orlando Scandrick.
“He’s played well for stretches and then he gets dinged up and then he misses a stretch and then he has to get back,” said secondary coach Jerome Henderson, per the Dallas Morning News. “You want him to just be able to ascend from preseason and keep getting better and better and better throughout a season. He just hasn’t been able to do that thus far.
“I hope this is the year he breaks through from that standpoint.”
The good news is Henderson believes, for the moment anyway, that Claiborne healthy, and getting quality reps in at Valley Ranch.
“I know he’s working his butt off now, he’s healthy now, he’s moving around well now,” Henderson said. “I hope he stays at the level he’s at now and continues to get better from there.”
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