Dallas Cowboys 53-man roster predictions: Training camp rolling
Wide Receivers (6)
Amari Cooper, Michael Gallup, CeeDee Lamb, Noah Brown, Cedric Wilson Jr, Simi Fehoko
Amari Cooper, Michael Gallup, and CeeDee Lamb are guaranteed to make the roster, no argument here.
As for the following receivers, there lies a giant competition for a select number of slots. Last season the Cowboys only carried five wide receivers: Cooper, Gallup, Lamb, Noah Brown, and Cedric Wilson Jr. Brown showed up in training camp last season and had his most productive season lined up as a true X receiver unlike as an H-back under the rule of former coach Jason Garrett. Cedric Wilson Jr was important to the team on special teams while randomly having the best game of his career in Week 3 of the 2020 season against the Seattle Seahawks.
As Amari Cooper and now Michael Gallup sit out practices with injuries and ailments, Lamb and Brown have taken center stage and have been consistently catching passes from QBs Prescott and Gilbert. Wilson Jr hasn’t been practicing, but this might be because the Cowboys are sure of his abilities and don’t feel the need for him to practice as much.
This now leaves me with a newly introduced sixth wide receiver spot. The Cowboys likely need to carry a lot of defenders because they drafted many this offseason and because they are in need of finding some solutions at specific positions, hence they might not even have availability for a sixth wide receiver on their roster?
However, the team would not have made a concerted effort to select Simi Fehoko if they didn’t think about carrying another receiver on the roster.
Thus far in camp, the two under-the-radar wide receivers have been Fehoko and third-year veteran Malik Turner, formerly of the Seattle Seahawks. Turner has been turning heads because of his good route running ability especially in the short and intermediate areas of the field. Fehoko has been tasked with some tough jump balls down the field; he, unsurprisingly, has caught the tough passes that have traveled his direction.
In the end, we have two receivers with relatively equal claim to fame competing for one spot we don’t even know will exist in the end. Purely based on how much the team spent to acquire one compared to the other, I believe the Cowboys would have no choice but to select Fehoko over Turner. It should also be said that people with Fehoko’s skill set and athletic ability are pretty rare.
So yeah.. onto the Tight Ends.