Jason Witten is gone, leaving a committee to replace him in Dallas.
Geoff Swaim, Rico Gathers, Blake Jarwin, Dalton Schultz and David Wells will compete for playing time at tight end in the absence of Witten. Schultz and Wells are rookies. Swaim has played 28 games, Jarwin one and Gathers has never played a down.
“They haven’t had a lot of opportunities to play,” Witten said on an ESPN conference call, via Jon Machota of the Dallas Morning News. “But in the last week we’ve seen that Jerry [Jones] has come out and said he feels confident in this group. Playing with Geoff Swaim for the last three years, I think there is some upside to his ability. He just hasn’t played in a lot of games. They really like him. They traded up in the draft for him.
“I think for those guys, they’re going to have their role in how it’s all going to play out. They certainly like Rico. He has big ability to stretch the field. Coming off the basketball court, he’s athletic. He can make plays. Can he do it for 60 plays? He hasn’t shown that consistency to be able to do that. They’re going to have to lean on Swaim to be able to kind of carry the workload, but they do have young talent in Jarwin and Rico that they see as a little bit of a flash player that can come in and have roles in the red zone or third down and the passing game.
“So those guys will be OK. I feel like sitting in those meetings with them and going through the last few years, they know what it takes to play that position. I hope that I have shown them that, but they can’t put the pressure on themselves. They just need to go play and feel confident in that system. Scott Linehan has had success with tight ends, so they’ll figure out their roles and what they want to do. Really, more than anything, they got to get comfortable in this Dak-friendly offense that they’re building in Dallas.”
It didn’t take Witten long to call the Cowboys “them,” “their” and “they.” He officially retired less than a week ago.