Dunn, Wozniak Getting Tricky With Drills in Spring Camp

As the running backs were on their knees, driving their hands into a practice pad before falling to the turf, their new position coach John Wozniak was behind them talking about losing a bet and doing a belly flop.

The drill represented the running backs picking up a defense’s blitz package, but Wozniak was using a little more imagery to get the point across.

“You lost the bet,” he said. “You gotta do it.”

Later in practice, the backs were flooding out of the backfield, past a would-be linebacker (who Wozniak was simulating) and streaking downfield for a fade pass from the quarterbacks.

Wozniak yelled all kinds of things and chased as they ran by. Meanwhile, receivers coach Kasey Dunn was pulling out all the stops.

So far this spring, he has shown the wonder of his receivers’ hands:

But Wednesday, he had the Cowboys doing things that, if done on Saturdays in a couple of months, would have landed them on SportsCenter.

Dunn lined the group up alongside a tackling dummy. As the first came up, he stood behind the dummy, opposite Dunn at the Jugs Machine. The receiver wrapped his hands around the dummy, and Dunn fired.

I didn’t see one dropped ball.

Later on, Wozniak was working with the punt returners. He wrapped a towel around their backs and told them to squeeze it between their arms and their torso, so the towel wouldn’t fall. As the punts came in, Wozniak walked near them, threw his hat at them and flinched toward them to give a representation of traffic during the catch.

Bravo, sirs. What a couple of awesome drills. We’ll see if it makes a difference in the performance, too.