The Dez Commandments

Last week people were championing Dez Bryant for walking up to Cowboys great TE of 3 Superbowl teams Jay Novacek and asking him to be his mentor. This week, things are back to the negative as we found out that the Cowboys have issued a set of specific rules to troubled wide receiver Dez Bryant.

• A midnight curfew. If he’s going to miss curfew, team officials must know in advance.
• No drinking alcohol
• He can’t attend any strip clubs and can only attend nightclubs if they are approved by the team and he has a security team with him.
• He must attend counseling sessions twice a week.
• A rotating three-man security team will leave one man with Bryant at all times.
• Members of the security team will drive Bryant to practices, games and team functions.

”What we’ve tried to do is come up with a plan for Dez like we would for any player who we feel like needs our support, and help him be his best as a player and as a person,” Garrett said. ”And the accountability factor is an important part of that with him and with anybody on our football team.”

This is the first time we’ve seen the Cowboys do something like this since Pacman Jones. That isn’t good company. Jerry Jones however is denying the rules.

“I’m not so sure where the media has come up with detail of this nature,” Jones said on KRLD-FM via the Star-Telegram.

“I think it’s pretty clear,” Jones said. “We’ve got behavior rules in the NFL that have been made very clear by the commissioner’s office. And I think it’s real clear that if you don’t abide by the rules of society what happens.”

Jerry Jones’ is dancing around rules that the Cowboys might be violating some kind of rule in the CBA for issuing specific rules. Drew Pearson who famously offered to mentor Dez Bryant only to have him laugh in his face isn’t a fan of the rules.

“I don’t think this situation is a good situation as far as Dez is concerned,” Pearson told KRLD-FM (via The Dallas Morning News) on Tuesday. “I don’t like it. It’s a grown man. He’s 23 years old. A grown man has to be restricted and told what to do? You’re supposed to be a professional.”

The rules Pearson say are to protect the Cowboys’ not to help Dez. He also said this maturity is a Dez problem.

“Nobody’s talking about Cole Beasley being immature or Cole Beasley needs people to be with him and all this kind of stuff,” Pearson said. “I’m saying, why can’t Dez adjust to this? Why can’t he become a man?”

The comparison to Cole Beasley is interesting because the rookie is 23, the same age as Dez Bryant.

Jerry had the following to say:

"“Fundamentally, Dez does – and I’m convinced – want to do many things that give him the opportunity to get on track the way he needs to both on and off the field. I think any of this talk or any of these references to what he’s going to be doing or what he’s not going to be doing in general is one that says let’s conform to good behavior, the kind of behavior the commissioner expects, that society expects, that anybody expects if you’re going to get the opportunities you are. He does believe he has a great opportunity.“We’re fully supportive of him, his family, his mother. We want to do anything in that direction that we can. As far as the specifics of rules, I think [there are] just rules that let him concentrate on what he’s doing on the field, let him do his work and not have the distractions of not doing it right off the field.”"

I think the Cowboys are doing what they can to help Dez, but they can’t force him to change. He needs to come to that epiphany on his own. Until than he won’t change. But you can’t babysit someone to health.

Winning cures all, if the Cowboys win and Dez is part of that the Cowboys will be in a good spot.