Scandrick: Defense Working Toward “Being Dominant”

With the ink dry on a one-year, $9.5 million extension that will keep him in Dallas through the 2019 season, Cowboys cornerback Orlando Scandrick can freely admit that in those weeks that he sat out of the team’s offseason conditioning program, he missed working out and competing with his teammates at Valley Ranch quite a bit.

“I’m happy to be back,” Scandrick told the team's website. “I missed it. I missed all of this--looking forward to this season.”

Scandrick is the best cornerback on what will be, on paper, a very improved defense. Dallas went defense-heavy in the draft, getting some secondary help in the first round with UConn defensive back Byron Jones, some pass rush help in the second with the highly-graded Nebraska defensive end Randy Gregory and linebacking help in the fourth with Minnesota’s Damien Wilson. Sean Lee will be back after missing all of 2014 and Greg Hardy will join the team beginning on Thanksgiving, assuming the league upholds his 10-game suspension.

After being much improved on 2013 last year, according to Scandrick, the goal for the defense is to take another big step forward in 2015--to be a “dominant” unit.

"We’re going to go out here and work every day. We’re going to continue to work on our craft to be a dominant defense, to be able to be the defense that this team can lean on when we need to,” Scandrick said. “Our offense ain’t always going to score 40 points and get 500 yards of offense. We just need to be able to be stable and just have guys play hard and just work towards being dominant."