Dez Bryant’s sideline outbursts and antics during the Dallas Cowboys’ game against the Detroit Lions were a hot-button topic of the week, but he’s certainly not the first receiver to lose his cool, especially if that receiver isn’t getting the ball thrown his way as often as he’d like.
Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo defended Bryant afterward, saying “he’s a positive guy” and that “he’s passionate.” Audio released after the game also showed that Bryant’s exchange with Romo wasn’t negative.
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Still, are those types of outbursts a distraction for teammates? Sporting News host Rayven Tirado asked two former players and SN contributors, Troy Aikman and Ross Tucker, about what it’s like to deal with an emotional wide receiver on the team.
Aikman pointed out his experiences in playing with an emotional receiver in Michael Irvin, and said that getting a receiver the ball is harder than fans might think.
“If you want to get (the running back) the ball, you just turn around and hand it to him, and it’s very easy to do,” Aikman said. “For receivers, it’s not quite that simple. Some people think that it is, that you can throw some quick passes … but at the end of the day those types of throws aren’t what satisfy the receivers. You’ve got to get the ball to them down the field. And when you’ve got a star player, defenses are going to do everything that they can to try to take that guy away.”
Aikman also described Irvin as an unselfish teammate and said that Irvin understood why he wasn’t getting the ball — even if he wasn’t happy about it — but Aikman isn’t sure if some of today’s star receivers have that same understanding.
“It’s not good when the quarterback is on the field worried about trying to make someone happy as opposed to just playing the position because the position is hard enough as it is,” Aikman said.
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Tucker, meanwhile, said that it’s “ridiculous” that some have defended Bryant by saying he’s just showing his passion.
“That’s so insulting to me, really to every other player in the NFL,” Tucker said. “So because they don’t rant and rave on the sideline and make a scene, they don’t care? Please.
“I can also tell you, based on my experience, receivers are just a different cat. I’ve seen receivers score a touchdown and be so angry and refuse to give me a high five because the other receiver had already scored two touchdowns.”