Last year, a contract impasse led to Dez Bryant missing the offseason program and OTAs, and Dallas Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones believes that absence left Bryant in less-than-optimal shape and played a major role in his injury-plagued 2015 season.
As you may remember, Bryant suffered a broken foot in the 2015 season opener against the Giants. He missed five games intitially, returned, and then was placed on injured reserve for the final two games. In total, he had 31 catches for 401 yards and three touchdowns in nine games.
After undergoing surgery on his injured right foot in January, Bryant is still working to recover from last year. But while he’s been limited in offseason workouts to this point, Jones believes 2016 will see vintage Dez.
“He's done an outstanding job and been committed to being around and I think that's only getting better,” Jones said, per the Dallas Morning News. “That's what we need of him, is to get well and do his rehab and then get in great shape.
"I think one of the tough things about last year for Dez, he plays with such energy, that with the contract dispute, if you will, he wasn't around, which is business, and consequently he probably wasn't in his best shape going into the season and then you start to add the injuries when players aren't in shape and they continued on through training camp and then on into the season and we ended up not having him much last year, so if he can get his rehab done and get himself in top condition, then I think we'll see the same Dez that we saw two years ago."
