A team usually has six days between games, seven if it's
scheduled to play on a Monday night. But typically there are a
handful of Thursday games, which require teams to significantly
shorten their weekly preparation time. SI looked at the Cowboys'
routine in the short week leading up to their 27-14 Thanksgiving
Day loss to the Oilers.
Coaches. In a normal week, the Dallas defensive staff spends
about 23 hours preparing a game plan; last week, with extensive
film breakdown of the Oilers having been done the previous
Friday, the work was completed in seven hours. Usually the
Cowboys have four regular practices and three walk-throughs.
Last week they had three practices and one walk-through, and the
last full session, on Wednesday, was slightly shorter than a
typical Friday practice. According to defensive coordinator Dave
Campo, no new plays are added in a short week. "We're very
simple. We let the players play," he says. "I firmly believe
that if you try to reinvent the wheel, it'll backfire on you."
Trainers. Jim Maurer walked down the aisle as the Dallas charter
returned from Green Bay on Nov. 23, in the wake of a 45-17 loss
to the Packers. Maurer, the team's head trainer, was already
starting ice and stimulation work. The partially dislocated
right shoulder of strong safety Darren Woodson, who was the most
seriously injured, was packed in ice. The plane touched down
about 7:30 p.m., and within an hour Woodson and about 15 other
players who had been hurt were being treated at the team's
Valley Ranch headquarters, a rare Sunday-night session. The
walking wounded returned at 8 a.m. on Monday, and Maurer and his
staff stayed busy for the rest of the short week, all the way up
to the morning of the game, when they were tending to players in
their hotel rooms. "I'm looking for every little injury, trying
to treat even the small things, to make sure everyone is ready,"
Maurer says. "We couldn't play on three days' rest all the time,
but for one Thursday a year, by game time there's not much
difference when the adrenaline starts pumping."
Players. In a short week they lose their regular Tuesday off day
(in Dallas's case, it was made up on Friday) and don't watch
film of the previous game. Since no wrinkles are added to the
game plan in a three-day week, there's no need to worry about
cramming. Rehabbing is another matter. Woodson squeezed in about
45 hours of treatment, but the shoulder wasn't ready by
Thursday, and he was deactivated against the Oilers. "The short
week is pretty tough because your body is not right, and you're
so used to getting six or seven days of rest between games,"
Woodson said on Wednesday. "I'm still sore. Every day that goes
by, the shoulder feels stronger and better, and if the game were
on Sunday, I think I would've been all right. But I don't want
to go out there on Thursday and hurt the team by playing."
Of course, when you lose two of five fumbles and throw three
interceptions—as the Cowboys did against the Oilers—the
best-laid plans of a short week don't matter much.
Issue date: December 8, 1997
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