Cowboys release promises to run again, send a message to the team

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Former Dallas Cowboys RB JaQuan Hardy tries to avoid a ball.

The Dallas Cowboys sent an important message to their locker room and offense this week as they added a reserve man to defend and cut offense.

With training camp coming in less than two weeks, Dallas and the rest of the NFL will fill out their 90-man roster if they haven’t already. With the arrivals of defenders Malik Jefferson and Christian Sam and striker Lirim Hajrullahu, the Cowboys had to launch one player to satisfy the demand: rerun JaQuan Hardy.

Dallas revealed that Hardy was cut along with the official announcement that Jefferson would be joining the team.

“The @dallascowboys made the following transactions on Thursday: – Issued RB JaQuan Hardy (Tiffin) – Signed LB Malik Jefferson (Texas), ” Cowboys official PR account Posted on July 15th.

It’s an important release since the message it’s basically sending is to offense: the rerun team can go in many different directions. The Cowboys currently have five reserves on the roster including Ezekiel Elliott, Tony Pollard, Rico Dowdle, Malik Davis and Aaron Shampklin, with the last two being UDFA rookies with plenty to prove to be included in the roster. book.

If any more pruning is done in the rerun unit, it will probably only take one more cut to bring the team down to three.

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Hardy Got NFL Gets Started with the Cowboys

Joining the Cowboys as an untrained freelance agent in 2021, not many Cowboys fans are familiar with the Cleveland-born guy making a comeback. That was mainly due to playing his college career at Tiffin, a Division II school in Tiffin, Ohio.

However, Hardy’s eye-catching numbers at Tiffin are what Dallas noticed. The 24-year-old backrunner averaged 6.4 yards per take and totaled 3207 yards to 28 touchdowns while playing for the Dragons.

After signing with the Cowboys and being demoted to the practice team during the final roster cut, Hardy finally got his chance with a Pollard injury in Week 13. Hardy was activated two weeks later and at Week 18, and he had his first physical examination. NFL regular season.

That being said, the opportunities are very limited, as the PFR shows. Hardy made five serves for a total of 29 yards between three games.

All in all, Hardy’s season in Dallas can hardly be considered a failure. He worked his way into the training team as an unskilled free agent, and then played well when he got a few touches. Now, he can work to get a spot on the list at his next spot.

Dallas Moving Forward With New UDFA

Hardy’s release at this point may have been done with good intentions: by liberating operations a few weeks before training camps start across the league, Hardy could find a team to impress.

However, the presence of Malik Davis must be considered. Like Hardy, Davis came to Dallas as a UDFA but had his roots in playing for Florida and a record-setting high school career at Jesuit High School in Tampa.

It is difficult to determine whether the Cowboys intend to have three or four reruns on the final 53 list. If there are four slots, Davis and Shampklin should have a position battle to determine who gets the last place. If Dallas only had room for three RBs, it would be hard to see either member of the team.