NFL Capsules: Dez Bryant 1st player on field for Cowboys camp

SAN ANTONIO — Dez Bryant was more than on time for the start of the Dallas Cowboys training camp. The first-round pick was the first player on the field Saturday.

“I’m just ready to play, that’s the message,” Bryant said. “I’m ready to do whatever they ask me to do. I’m here to work hard, I’m here to give 100 percent, just bring my A-game.”

Wearing the No. 88 jersey assigned to him right after being drafted, Bryant emerged from the Alamodome tunnel about 45 minutes before the Cowboys’ first workout. The receiver from Oklahoma State then caught passes from an undrafted rookie quarterback.

Bryant had alleviated any concern about him missing any workouts when he agreed to terms of a five-year contract even before getting to San Antonio. He signed it after he arrived for the NFL’s longest full-squad camp this year.

“I’m going to use the phrase, not on time, before time,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Friday while commending Bryant and his agent, Eugene Parker, for getting the deal done. “They both knew that this thing was important to set a tone, set an impression. ... Boy, that’s a good sign.”

Another impressive cue came Saturday.

Bryant arrived at the Alamodome more than two hours before practice. Once on the field, he acknowledged the growing crowd with a wave and then ran a variety of routes long before Tony Romo and the rest of the team even came out of the locker room.

“I did do it on purpose, to show the fans I’m ready to play,” Bryant said.

He was also one of the last players to leave after the two-hour practice. He talked to several waves of reporters and signed autographs, even obliging one man’s request to sign the back of an outfit being worn by a 9-month-old boy before posing for a picture holding the baby.

Dallas is the first team to have its full squad on the field, and no other teams are scheduled to have that until Wednesday. The Cowboys play their preseason opener in two weeks as part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame weekend that will include NFL career rushing leader and three-time Super Bowl champion Emmitt Smith’s induction.

Once the opening workout without pads started, Bryant made several acrobatic and one-handed catches in drills without defenders. On one sideline route, he reached back with his left hand to make the grab, then managed to stay inbounds.

“Dez is a good football player and I think he’s showing people that,” Romo said.

The Cowboys traded up three spots in April to get Bryant 24th overall after the talented receiver slipped in the draft amid questions about his character. But Dallas did its homework after he was limited to only three games last season because of his NCAA suspension for lying to investigators about a meeting with former Cowboys star Deion Sanders.

“We felt very comfortable with Dez as a person, we obviously loved him as a player,” offensive coordinator Jason Garrett said. “He’s a good young man, he goes about it the right way. Watch him practice. He’s 100 mph every minute of every day. He’s learning, he’s trying to understand what we’re asking him to do and he gets better and better.”

There were some concerns when Bryant picked the same agent as his buddy and fellow receiver Michael Crabtree, a first-rounder whose holdout last season lasted into late October. The signing of draft picks was also complicated by NFL labor uncertainty.

But Bryant agreed Thursday to the deal that guarantees him at least $8.3 million. His base salary this season is $320,000, but he got a $1.95 million signing bonus and gets another $570,000 roster bonus during camp.

“Me and my agent and Mr. Jones just wanted to get that contract out of the way so I can get on the field,” Bryant said. “Now all I have to do is get ready for the season.”

All six of the Cowboys draft picks were signed before camp. The only one not practicing is safety Akwasi Owusu-Ansah, the fourth-round pick still recovering from left shoulder surgery in March.

Owusu-Ansah and Stephen Hodge, a 2009 draft pick recovering from microfracture surgery, are both on the physically unable to perform list.

Third-year tight end Martellus Bennett missed the opening workout because of a non-football ankle injury. Coach Wade Phillips expects him to be out only a couple of days.

Bryant, with that cherished No. 88 jersey previously worn by Hall of Fame receiver Michael Irvin and Drew Pearson, ran plays primarily with the second-team offense Saturday. The Cowboys also plan for him to return kicks.

There are some who even think that by the end of training camp Bryant could be pushing underachieving Roy Williams for the starting job opposite Pro Bowl receiver Miles Austin.

“That bridge was crossed when we drafted Dez, and will be crossed as this season unfolds,” said Jones, who believes there will be a role and plenty of balls for all of the receivers.

“Controversy is what everybody loves, try to pin him against me, me against him, and it’s not going to work,” said Williams, who compared to the situation to the 2011 truck he just bought and the 2004 he also still has. “Everybody loves a new car. ... That 2004 still runs good.”

Commentary: Drama queen in Favre surfaces again

There was major flooding this week in Wisconsin, a state where Brett Favre used to ply his trade.

It was getting pretty deep once again in Mississippi, too, in what has now become an annual rite of summer. The drama queen of the South was giving interviews and accepting selected visitors, including one who for some reason still wants to coach him this season.

Brad Childress didn’t get a commitment, of course. That would take half the fun out of the thing.

There’s surgeries to recover from, and fans to tease. A guy needs his space to throw a teammate under the bus, too, so the people of Minnesota don’t blame him for what happened that January night in New Orleans.

Besides, the Vikings don’t break training camp until mid-August and those other quarterbacks need to get some playing time in during the exhibition season. Should be plenty of time left for Childress to wax the Escalade and head to the airport to pick up his quarterback before play begins for real.

And don’t worry, Vikings fans, Favre will be there for the opening snap. He’ll be there just as surely as LeBron James was always going to flee Cleveland for South Beach.

He’ll be there because he loves to play football, and because he’s guaranteed millions to do what he loves.

He’ll be there because he loves to be loved. And he’ll be there because he needs to be needed.

That’s why Favre can’t seem to do what normal veteran quarterbacks do, which is to arrive at training camp, get in his reps, and go about his business. It’s why he retires and unretires and then calls a press conference to report the astonishing news he hasn’t made up his mind about anything.

It’s why he invites a Men’s Journal writer down to spend a day with him in Mississippi, then complains that the writer somehow defamed his family by quoting his own agent as calling him a drama queen.

Drama queen, indeed. Asked on Friday to describe his first season with Favre, Childress started singing an old show tune to Dave Campbell of The Associated Press.

“Getting to know you. Getting to know all about you,” Childress sang.

By now, Childress should know plenty about the quarterback who just won’t quit. He’s been down to Mississippi twice this year to sit out on the front porch with Favre, presumably to discuss which part of his body is bothering him now.

What they surely didn’t discuss was the NFC championship game against the Saints, where the Vikings were a few yards away from a win in regulation until mistakes by both coach and quarterback cost them a trip to the Super Bowl.

Childress has to take the blame for two conservative runs with the ball on the Saints’ 33, followed by a penalty for having 12 men in the huddle. Favre should own up for the interception on the next play, though that’s not exactly his style.

Turns out it was Sidney Rice’s fault for not coming back to the ball like Favre thought he would.

“As a player you’ve got to pull the trigger,” Favre told Men’s Journal. “You can’t say, ‘Well, is he going to do what I think he’s going to do?’ He wasn’t wrong, and in some ways, I wasn’t either.”

OK. Now that we’ve got that cleared up, the Favre countdown watch can officially begin.

There will be breathless reports out of Hattiesburg, where the 40-year-old Favre is shedding a few pounds and limbering up the ol’ arm in practices with a local high school team. Expect Favre to talk one day about whether he still has it anymore, then the next about how he really wants to lead the Vikings to the promised land.

As the days turn into weeks and his teammates swat mosquitoes at the team’s training camp in Mankato, Favre will let everyone twist in the wind. Then he’ll begin making some noises about how a 20th season might just be possible, after all.

At some point all eyes will turn to the skies to see if the private jet sent by Vikings owner Zygi Wilf is on the way.

It will be, of course, and Favre will get the obligatory hero’s welcome he so desperately seems to want. Then he’ll put on the pads and, barring injury, play better than any quarterback his age has a right to play.

So far, the campaign is unfolding just as planned. About all that’s missing is a LeBron-like television special for Favre to announce his decision.

But while James held a city hostage to stoke his massive ego, Favre has him beat.

He has a whole state to toy with to satisfy his narcissistic desires.

Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg@ap.org

Kaye Cowher, wife of former coach, dies at age 54

RALEIGH, N.C. — Kaye Cowher, the wife of ex-Steelers coach Bill Cowher and a former basketball player at North Carolina State and in the now-defunct Women’s Professional Basketball League, has died of skin cancer. She was 54.

Cowher died Friday in her native North Carolina, where the family relocated at her urging during Cowher’s final year as coach in 2006, one season after the Steelers won the Super Bowl. The family had lived since in Raleigh.

“Kaye was such a loving and compassionate person and she was the foundation of our family,” Bill Cowher, now an NFL analyst with CBS, said in a statement Saturday. “Kaye was always at my side throughout my career as a player, coach, NFL analyst and, most importantly, as a parent to our three daughters.”

He added: “Kaye was the rock that we could all lean on in the tough times. She was looked up to by so many people and I cannot say enough about what Kaye meant to our family.”

Kaye Cowher and other family members were often seen cheering from a private box at Steelers home games during Bill Cowher’s 15 seasons as coach from 1992-2006. The Steelers lost four AFC championship games — all at home — before finally winning the Super Bowl, and Kaye Cowher was repeatedly seen consoling her husband following those defeats.

Steelers president Art Rooney II said: “Kaye was a very private person who was very devoted to her family. Kaye made many friends in our organization and our community.”

The Cowhers met at North Carolina State, where Bill played linebacker before beginning an NFL career. They married in 1981, after the former Kaye Young played alongside twin sister Faye in college and during a three-season pro basketball career.

After leading North Carolina State to a 29-5 record and the first Atlantic Coast Conference women’s title in 1978, the sisters played one season with the New York Stars and two with the New Jersey Gems in a league that was a forerunner to the WNBA. During the twins’ WPBL careers, they filmed a Wrigley Doublemint gum commercial.

At the time of her death, Kaye Cowher served on the North Carolina State Board of Visitors, which advises the school’s chancellor and board of trustees. The Cowhers returned to Raleigh even before Bill Cowher’s NFL coaching career ended partly because of their close ties to the university and the friends they made during college.

Besides her husband, Kaye Cowher is survived by daughters Meagan, Lauren and Lindsay. Meagan and Lauren played basketball at Princeton and Lindsay plays at Wofford.

A private funeral service will be held Monday in North Carolina.

Giants sign free agent LB Bulluck

NEW YORK — The New York Giants have agreed to terms with free agent linebacker Keith Bulluck.

Agent Gary Wichard says Bulluck and the team came to an agreement Saturday. Media reports said the deal was for one year and $2.5 million.

Bulluck has spent his entire 10-year career with the Tennessee Titans. He was a first-round pick out of Syracuse in 2000 and grew up in New City, N.Y., about 30 miles north of where the Giants play in East Rutherford, N.J.

The Giants have been looking for a replacement for middle linebacker Antonio Pierce, who was released after last season.

The 33-year-old Bulluck is coming off a serious knee injury. He tore his left anterior cruciate ligament in December. He was second on the team with 118 tackles in 14 games.

Sixth-round pick Eric Olsen signs with Broncos

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Sixth-round draft pick Eric Olsen has signed with the Denver Broncos.

The 6-foot-3, 305-pound offensive lineman started 31 games for Notre Dame, playing all three interior line positions.

He gave up only four sacks in his last two years with the Fighting Irish and picked up only one penalty during his final 1,731 plays in college.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed Saturday.