The Youth Must Be Served Now

FRISCO, Texas – At first blush, this looked bad, really bad during what turned out to be Tuesday’s lone mandatory minicamp practice for the Cowboys.

The receivers unable to practice counted CeeDee Lamb, Michael Gallup, James Washington and Noah Brown, the incumbent top four after trading away Amari Cooper and losing Cedrick Wilson in free agency.

Then there was franchised tight end Dalton Schultz, here physically, but not participating in any of the 7-on-7 or team sessions.

And really, there was no need to wear out 12th-year veteran offensive lineman Tyron Smith or even ninth-year guy Zack Martin.

Then over there on the other side of the ball, not practicing were Jayron Kearse, Malik Hooker, Jabril Cox, Damone Clark and limited was Carlos Watkins, who had missed most of the offseason workouts.

Dang, not good. That’s a boatload of starters and talent unable to participate in this non-contact work in helmets, jerseys and shorts for a team needing to improve on last year’s 12-5 finish, but bowing out in the first round of the playoffs yet again.

But after watching closely, this dawned on me: The Cowboys greatly benefiting from these unintended consequences caused by the number of players merely watching.

As in a whole bunch of young guys, some draft choices, some rookie free agents, some guys on the bottom edge of the roster having been around for a year or two, basically getting more reps than they would have if all these frontline players had been on the field.

“We’re a young team,” Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott pointed out. “Obviously, you look in the draft, look at what we did, and you look at our roster, Year One or Year Two guys are going to be asked to play and there’s definitely a few on both sides of the ball that I’m excited for. Excited for what they’ve just done and how quick they’ve come in and made an impact out there just in practice.”

The Cowboys will need this to continue throughout training camp, the practices against the Broncos and Chargers and…