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Tony Pollard tried not to make too much out of what it meant for the rookie Dallas running back with Ezekiel Elliott away from training camp while seeking a new contract from the Cowboys.Drafted in the fourth round with the idea of possibly being a more potent backup to the two-time NFL rushing champion Womens Connor Williams 2019 Jersey , Pollard has risen to the top of the depth chart if practices at camp are any indication. And the former Memphis running back has impressed the right people.“One of the most exciting players to me of this training camp,” star quarterback Dak Prescott said. “The things that he’s been able to do running the ball, catching the ball out of the backfield. He’s making plays. And he’s really an intelligent dude.”Pollard has heard from Elliott since the Cowboys reported to camp without a key part of an offense that helped Dallas win two NFC East titles in the former Ohio State star’s first three seasons.“He’s done a good job just texting here and there, telling me he’s been getting good feedback about me and just keep up the good work,” Pollard said.As long as Elliott stays away, Pollard will have the chance to build on that good feedback, which he says is the product of something simple.“Just picking up the offense on the go, fast,” he said. “Just being able to play comfortable and play up to speed like I’ve been doing since college.”Pollard’s most notable work at Memphis came on kickoff returns, and the Cowboys believe he has the build to make those breakaway skills work in the backfield. Since kickoff returns are less frequent because of NFL rules, there’s also talk of Pollard returning punts.So far, he’s mostly just practicing catching punts. That could change at some point.“Got to worry about him getting too much,” executive vice president of personnel Stephen Jones said. “Everybody wants him working on their stuff, whether it’s special teams or offense. We’ve got watch his reps. He’s doing a real nice job for us.”Pollard said he was a little overwhelmed at rookie minicamp , but not so much now.“Now that I’ve been around the guys and been able to go over the playbook and things like that over and over, it’s getting kind of easy,” Pollard said. “It’s a big difference Cheap Connor Williams Youth Jersey , just from my confidence level and just trusting and knowing that I know what I have to do, not being shy or timid about things.”When camp started, Pollard was behind Darius Jackson, a fourth-year back who finally got the first carries of his career last year in a meaningless regular-season finale with Elliott sitting after Dallas had wrapped up the division title.By the second week, Pollard was rotating in with the starters. Now he seems to be the clear first-teamer as long as Elliott isn’t around.“He’s handling a lot of information on the offensive side of the ball, on the running game, the variation that you have in the passing game, whether you’re protecting or running routes,” coach Jason Garrett said. “He doesn’t look like he’s not playing to his speed because he is thinking too much.”The way Prescott sees it, Pollard is doing plenty of thinking in the hotel adjacent to the practice fields in California.“When we’re in the offense, or in the offensive unit, or in the team meetings, anytime coach calls him out on his responsibility, without a hesitation he’s getting that right,” Prescott said. “That’s what you want to see from a young guy.”Pollard is about to get his first chance to show his progress against an opponent in the preseason opener Saturday night at San Francisco.“Just a chance to just be out there in a game, go after somebody else,” Pollard said. “It’s just a chance for all of us to show that.”With Elliott missing Dallas Cowboys Xavier Woods Jersey , Pollard has taken advantage of his chances so far.51<button class="view-gallery">View Gallery</button> Gallery:PHOTOS: Dallas Cowboys Training Camp In OxnardKelvin Kuo-USA TODAY Sports | Kelvin Kuo No matter what you do, long-term contracts are inherently risky."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Sections Dallas Cowboys NewsDallas Cowboys Podcasts & VideosLong-term contracts are always a risk, recent history shows that for the CowboysNew,88commentsNo matter what you do, long-term contracts are inherently risky.CDTShareTweetShareShareLong-term contracts are always a risk, recent history shows that for the CowboysWhen DeMarcus Lawrence signed his long-term deal with the Dallas Cowboys I couldn’t help but retreat back to one thought:This hasn’t exactly gone well for the Cowboys in recent memory.To be clear here, I’m talking about big-time deals for big-time dudes. Tank is of the franchise cornerstone variety, you don’t hand out extensions like that just because (as evidenced by how long Lawrence’s contract took). There are those extensions that a team signs a player to that the rest of the NFL takes notice of, Lawrence’s contract certainly fits that bill.While we’re all hoping (with definite reason to believe) that Lawrence will live up to the expectation a mammoth deals bring, the reason I kept going back to that thought was that the previous two extensions Dallas signed like that didn’t exactly work out so swell. The Cowboys passed on signing DeMarco Murray to a deal like that, but they locked down Tony Romo and Dez Bryant to those huge extensions. Again... not so swell results.Tony Romo: Signed a six-year, $108M deal with Cowboys in 2013. He only started 34 more games after that.Dez Bryant: Signed a five-year, $70M deal with Cowboys in 2015. He only started 38 more games after that.The Cowboys barely got two seasons out of both Romo and Bryant after they signed them to contracts that put them among the highest-paid people at their respective positions. While there were definitely moments that made us smile, there’s no getting around that, those deals were failures in the sense of the intended life of them.Long-term deals are always going to be a risk, we know thatThese days the subject of long-term deals runs rampant when it comes to the Cowboys as there are so many hanging in the balance. Amari Cooper is up for a new contract, Ezekiel Elliott is as well Womens Xavier Woods 2019 Jersey , Byron Jones is going to need to get paid, and oh yea Dak Prescott is eligible for a new deal.Prescott’s deal in particular is the one that sets conversations ablaze as there are so many different ideas on whether paying him is the absolutely correct, or utterly disastrous, move for the team. I spoke to the mothership’s David Helman on the latest episode of The Ocho on the BTB podcast feed (subscribe here), believe it or not it’s possible to talk about it rationally without everything falling apart.The Ocho with special guest David HelmanOdds are very slim, or rather they’re not exponentially high, that the Cowboys are going to sign all of these guys to long-term deals and that they’ll all end up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. These types of contracts are risks and you have to be as calculated as you can be with them, Stephen Jones is very good at that. The difference now is that the players we’re talking about the Cowboys signing are all young and ascending. When they paid Romo, more specifically Dez, they were paying for past production. The trajectories of Dak, Zeke, Amari, Lawrence, and Byron all appear to be rising. That is the type of thing that mitigates the risk.Dallas finds themselves in a treacherous situation with all of these looming deals. There are a number of ways that everything can finish, but if they do their homework they can maximize the window of good ones and hope to end up there when it’s all said and done.