Whether or not Jason Witten's comments to Newy Scruggs represent a change in the player, I strongly doubt. Witten has never been a figure wont for drama, nor has he ever made gratuitous claims about himself or the team, vocal or succinct.
Witten, whether making a long, helmetless run after a catch, or talking to the media, has always seemed to get it.
Now if his comments are representative of the team as a whole, therein seems to be a dramatic shift in the Dallas Cowboys organization. (Up to and, after his pre-camp comments, excluding Jerry Jones.)
"I mean you go 9-7, and you don’t make the playoffs, coming off a 13-3 season the year before and so much is made of it," Witten said. "There are a lot of good teams out there and we’re not up there with the people that are being named, and I think its good for us."
This is a significant departure from last year's camp in Oxnard where seemingly no one gave any thought to the fact that 13-3 and out was not a definite aberrance, but very possibly (and actually, it turns out) a pressing though addressable sign of flaw within the organization. Watching HBO's Hard Knocks, though, another playoff run was all but assumed. Camp Cupcake was in full effect. And, in retrospect, we should have seen the disappointment coming, with hubris oozing out of the ears of the organization as a whole.
Leave it to Mr. Perfect, Jason Witten to nail it on the head. "I think it's good for us."
Cautious, patient optimism was the order of the day for Witten in this interview, and it's hopeful that such a mindset is permeating through the locker room.
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"I don’t know what that means as far as where we’re going to end up in the end, but when your approach it the right way and you have the right focus, you put yourself in a very good position to be successful."
Witten isn't saying anything groundbreaking here; his was an answer that has been said, in some variation, by thousands of athletes thousands of times in thousands of interviews. But after the seeming arrogance of the 2008 Cowboys, which only seemed to dry up when they realized--(gasp) we might not make the playoffs--it is nothing short of refreshing.
