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Yes, the start of training camps is two months away, but it’s never too early to consider the coming season. A look at the best-case and worst-case scenarios for the Cowboys in 2012.

Dream scenario (12-4): The issue in Dallas is the extent to which the defense improves. If the improvement remains incremental, they'll lose some games they should win and have to scrap to stay in the division race. But if the defense takes a dramatic step forward in its second year under defensive coordinator Rob Ryan and with Brandon Carr and Morris Claiborne having been brought in to upgrade the secondary, the Cowboys become a Super Bowl contender quite quickly. In the Cowboys' dream scenario, Tony Romo has another big year at quarterback, Miles Austin and DeMarco Murray stay healthy and Dez Bryant takes a big developmental step forward of his own, using his considerable physical ability to dominate matchups in other teams' secondaries and the end zone. The new guys on the offensive line tighten things up in the interior, the move back to right tackle makes Doug Free more comfortable and Tyron Smith transitions seamlessly to left tackle. And in the dream scenario, the improvements in the secondary help the defensive front seven get more pressure on the quarterback, with outside linebacker Anthony Spencer playing the way he did in December 2009 and DeMarcus Ware playing like ... well, like he always does.

Nightmare scenario (6-10): The Cowboys' nightmare scenario, as is the case with anyone's, includes injuries. In this scenario, Austin and Bryant struggle to stay healthy, and the team actually does find itself missing the surprisingly effective replacement Laurent Robinson provided in 2011. Murray also gets banged-up, forcing them to rely again on Felix Jones and little else at running back. Claiborne struggles, as young corners often do, to adjust to the speed and intensity of the NFL game, and Spencer muddles along again, content to be a pretty good but not great player opposite Ware. In the nightmare scenario, Romo has a bad year riddled with turnovers and the kind of inconsistency that gives his critics actual evidence for their criticism, and he raises legitimate questions about how much longer the Cowboys will remain committed to him. The nightmare scenario includes a slow start against a very tough-looking early portion of the schedule and sees the Cowboys succumb to the tension and negativity that's always so quick to cling to them in times of trouble. And no, because you're asking, I don't think that even the nightmare scenario puts Jason Garrett on the hot seat. Jerry Jones loves that guy.

The first projected win totals of the 2012 NFL season emerged from Nevada this week.

Green Bay and New England are the early leaders at 12 wins apiece -- the Packers enjoying a slight edge for those who favor the over. An over/under of 10 wins has been set for Houston, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and San Francisco.

Dallas, with its new-look secondary, can put 8.5 win in its sights. ESPNDallas.com's Cowboys writers are split on whether the team can surpass the number:

TODD ARCHER (Over)

Are you taking the over or the under on 8.5 wins for the Cowboys?

•  
  87%
  Over
•  
  13%
  Under

(Total votes: 4,896)

I think this is a 10-win team and that will put them in the playoffs. The schedule is difficult but there is a chance to get off to a good start, and the softer part is in the middle of the schedule where they can put themselves in good position for December. I wouldn't say the Cowboys are a championship team, but they can get in the tournament.

TIM MacMAHON (Under)

I'm predicting another 8-8 season for the Cowboys, so give me the under, as long as I don't have to put any money down. I don't really have great football reasons to foresee another .500 season for the Cowboys, just a gut feel. Dallas turned the team's most glaring weakness -- the cornerback corps -- into a strength. They have an impressive arsenal of offensive skill players and hope they can stay healthy. But I've been conditioned to expect the underwhelming from this franchise.

JEAN-JACQUES TAYLOR (Under)

The Cowboys still have too many holes and question marks on their roster to believe they're going to be one of the NFL's surprises this year. They play 10 games against quality quarterbacks this season and that doesn't include four games against Washington's Robert Griffin III, Cincinnati's Andy Dalton and Tampa Bay's Josh Freeman. Add four games against the rugged AFC North, not including the Cleveland Browns, and the Cowboys could be an improved team and still have the same record as they did in 2011.

CALVIN WATKINS (Over)

The Cowboys are an improved team from last year and that should help them with a daunting schedule that includes tough non-divisional road games at Baltimore, Atlanta and Carolina. The late-season schedule that bothered the Cowboys in years past won't be a problem this year. The Cowboys will handle it and win 10 games.

It's your turn. Are you taking the over or the under?

IRVING, Texas -- The Cowboys are moving some things around in their college scouting department, with Jim Abrams joining the organization after spending six-plus seasons as Tampa Bay’s national scout.

The Abrams move, which was reported first by insidetheleague.com, brings about a reorganization of sorts after Northeast scout John Wojciechowski left for Green Bay following the draft.

Abrams will serve as the Cowboys’ West Coast scout with Sam Garza serving as a scout for Texas and Oklahoma. Bill DeKraker will move from the Midwest to Northeast and Kevin Simon was bumped up from the team’s Combine scout to the Midwest. Mitch LaPoint will remain the team’s Southeast scout. Justin Stucky will take over as the Combine scout.

Assistant director of player personnel Tom Ciskowski, who is entering his fifth season, national scouts Drew Fabianich and Walter Juliff and college scouting coordinator Chris Hall will overlap the entire country.

Ben Rogers from ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM takes on Ryan Ruocco from ESPN New York 98.7 FM to determine the top dog in the NFC East this season: The Giants or the Cowboys.

The Los Angeles Dodgers sold for $2.175 billion in a deal that was finalized earlier this month.

PODCAST
Coop and Nate discuss Jerry Jones' comments about the window closing on the Cowboys' championship hopes. Listen

And a report in today's New York Daily News that the New York Yankees might be for sale -- one deemed false by the club's management Thursday morning -- raises one question locally: How much are the Dallas Cowboys worth?

They have that billion dollar stadium in Arlington, Texas. They also have one of the more marketable teams in the United States, if not the world.

Several of their key players -- Tony Romo, DeMarcus Ware, Jay Ratliff, Sean Lee, Jason Witten, Miles Austin and Dez Bryant -- are in their primes.

"In some ways NFL franchises (are) more valuable with network deals and (a salary) cap," said ESPN's Andrew Brandt, a former player agent and vice president of the Green Bay Packers who is also full-time lecturer at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. "Yet MLB has high local (television) for marquee teams like L.A. and MLB has no 'minimum' spending from a cap. In terms of legacy franchise having high premiums, yes, (that) bodes well for Cowboys."

So is the Cowboys' worth in the billions?

"Comparing NFL and MLB franchises is a little tricky because the leagues are organized differently from both revenue sharing and media rights perspectives," said David M. Carter, executive director of USC's Sports Business Institute. "While the Cowboys and the Dodgers both have incredible brand strength and loyal followings, the Dodgers sale consists of two important elements not readily available in Dallas, namely the ability to extract billions from a local cable television deal and the potential for sports-anchored real estate development in the parking lots at Dodger Stadium. These attributes drive the total value of the enterprise up."

Andrew Zimbalist, professor of economics at Smith College in Massachusetts, believes the Cowboys are worth more than the Dodgers but cautions that the local money the baseball team attracts is important in terms of sale price.

"The impact, I believe, is indirect and modest," he said. "There are special circumstances in Southern California now, largely connected to competition between Fox and Time Warner to control the (regional sports market) that do not affect the Cowboys.

"I'm not sure that it is safe to assume that, but I do think that the Cowboys would probably sell for above that. The market for sports franchises is thin, so what it sells for depends of various idiosyncratic factors."

Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said Wednesday the team isn't going to trade disgruntled cornerback Mike Jenkins. We didn't post on it here because we already knew this. Everybody already knew it. Even Jenkins, though he's let it be known he's unhappy with his contract and his new role as the team's No. 3 cornerback and would like to be traded, probably knew it too. He'd have to be blind not to.

PODCAST
Coop and Nate discuss Jerry Jones' comments about the window closing on the Cowboys' championship hopes. Listen

Jenkins isn't making so much money that the Cowboys would want to dump him like the Eagles did with Asante Samuel. He's too good for them to trade for a late-round draft pick and not quite good enough to convince a team to offer an early-round pick. The result is that the team, as it tends to in NFL contract situations, holds all of the cards and is required to make no move at all in response to Jenkins' decision to skip offseason workouts. If he wants to stay home, he stays home. If he wants to skip mandatory workouts next month or part of training camp, they can fine him. If he wanted to sit out a whole season, they'd just run Brandon Carr, Morris Claiborne and Orlando Scandrick out there and take their chances. They're better with Jenkins in that mix and would like to have him, but they're not desperate enough to even consider granting him his wish.

Jenkins finds himself in NFL contract limbo, and if he's looking for a sympathetic shoulder on which to cry he doesn't even have to look outside his own division. The New York Giants' Osi Umenyiora is basically in the same situation -- he's unhappy with his contract, he isn't thrilled to be the No. 3 defensive end on his team, and he would rather play elsewhere. But he isn't getting traded either, because (stop me if this sounds familiar) he's affordable, he's too good to trade for peanuts, and he isn't going to bring back a first-round or second-round pick in a deal. The Giants are better off keeping an unhappy Umenyiora around than trading him for pennies on the dollar. It's the decision they made when he raised the same fuss a year ago, and they got 12.5 sacks out of him in 13 games (counting postseason) for their patience.

If either Jenkins or Umenyiora really wanted to push this, there are two somewhat extreme ways they could go. The first is that they could sit out the meaningful stuff, like training camp and regular-season games. If they prove that they're willing to do that, then circumstances could, theoretically, improve their leverage. Say Jenkins is sitting at home in late August and Claiborne gets hurt, or Umenyiora is sitting at home Week 2 and Justin Tuck gets hurt. In cases like those, the need for the player may become great enough to warrant a new deal. But that's a big risk to take because injuries are unpredictable, and in the meantime the player has allowed the team the chance to get used to life without him.

The second option in this case is to make a nuisance of yourself -- to show up, but put your contract situation into the spotlight in an annoying and disruptive way. The all-time visual symbol of this may well be Terrell Owens doing pushups in his driveway. Jenkins or Umenyiora could choose to simply continue being a pain, in the hope that the annoyance might prod the team into trading him for less than they think he's worth. But this carries risk, as well -- the basic one being the risk of giving the outside world (and potential future employers) reason to believe you're a jerk.

The Giants don't fear this from Umenyiora, because they trust their coaching staff and their veteran locker room to effectively ignore potential disruptions. And the Cowboys know Jenkins, and I think they're betting on the idea that he's not the pushups-in-the-driveway sort.

What these guys are doing now -- skipping voluntary workouts and letting it be known through third-party sources that they're upset -- is the simplest way to make their particular point. It costs them nothing right now to stand up for themselves, and they should.

If you're unhappy at work and you feel your bosses aren't treating you fairly, it's important to find a proper and effective way to let them know. That goes for you, me, NFL players and everyone else. But in the end, in the cases of Jenkins and Umenyiora, there's not going to be anything either one can do.

This is the nature of their profession, and the working conditions under which NFL players operate. It's not fair, because teams can end contracts on a whim and the risk of injury is incredibly high, but a history of players crossing picket lines and caving in on labor negotiations has constructed a system in which the teams hold all the cards and the player rarely finds himself in the position of strength. Unfortunately for NFL players, this isn't Major League Baseball.

Jenkins and Umenyiora are both eligible to be free agents next year, and I don't think either has to fear the franchise-player designation. The franchise numbers for cornerbacks and defensive ends are over $10 million, and it's unlikely that either the Cowboys or Giants would want to commit so much to their No. 3 player at those positions.

It's too far into the future to predict for certain, but the odds are they won't be in limbo again this time next year. Right now, all these guys can do is decide how much fine money (if any) they're willing to spend to make their point, and once they reach that number, show up, practice, hope they don't get hurt and play well enough to convince some other team to give them big contracts in 2013.

It may not be great. May not be fair. But for Jenkins, Umenyiora and so many others like them in the NFL, they unfortunately don't have much choice.

IRVING, Texas -- Asked how the media horde for a Valley Ranch OTA compared to his days in Kansas City, cornerback Brandon Carr cracked a smile.

PODCAST
Galloway & Company's Matt Mosley chats about the window closing for the Dallas Cowboys, and just how close they are to the New York Giants. Listen

“It’d probably be just you,” Carr said to the inquiring reporter, one of several surrounding the $50 million free agent’s locker and one of dozens who attended the voluntary workout.

The spotlight is something that Carr will have to get used to. He’s no longer a no-name playing for a small-market team. He’s a high-profile addition to America’s Team.

“I’m comfortable with it,” Carr said. “I’ll grow into it as it comes. Hopefully it will be a good spotlight, but that really doesn’t matter. When I’m out there playing, I’m not thinking about who’s looking at me or what they’re saying about me. I’m out there with my teammates and playing for them.”

As far as Carr is concerned, he’s still a grinder who was a fifth-round pick out of Grand Valley State. He won’t be a different dude after depositing a $10 million signing bonus.

“I’m going to continue to be the same person I’ve always been,” Carr said. “I don’t feel like I have to change. Of course, on the field, I have to elevate my game, take it to the next level. That was already going to happen. That was my goal before I even signed with the Cowboys.

“I’m going to be the same person, talk to you guys the same way. Stay boring, of course.”

Coach Jason Garrett refers to players with that kind of attitude as “the right kind of guy.” That’s not necessarily why the Cowboys paid Carr like a Pro Bowler. They paid “retail,” as Jerry Jones would say, because they graded Carr as the best available player at a position that was a desperate need in Dallas.

The hope is that Carr can have the kind of impact with the Cowboys that Johnathan Joseph did in Houston last season. Joseph signed a similar deal last summer and made his first Pro Bowl while starring for a drastically improved Texans defense.

Carr's talent makes him a good fit for the Dallas defense. His approach makes him a good fit in a locker room that has long had too strong a sense of entitlement.

“I’m really impressed with him and really impressed with him right from the start when he got here for the offseason program,” Garrett said. “Very serious-minded kid, doesn’t talk a lot, just goes to work. He wants to get better.”

Carr has to get better to live up to the high standards that come with the spotlight and his salary. It's a challenge he embraces.

IRVING, Texas -- Of the cornerbacks on the Cowboys roster, Mike Jenkins isn't attending offseason workouts and first-round pick Morris Claiborne can't practice because of his recovery from wrist surgery. And then there's Orlando Scandrick and Brandon Carr.

PODCAST
Galloway & Company's Matt Mosley chats about the window closing for the Dallas Cowboys, and just how close they are to the New York Giants. Listen

Carr is the newly signed free agent. Scandrick is the slot corner who is working out daily at Valley Ranch and has watched a massive change take place at the position.

Gone are veterans Terence Newman and Frank Walker along with Alan Ball, who switched between corner and safety the past two seasons. The Cowboys also have a new secondary coach in Jerome Henderson.

"I mean, it was a lot," Scandrick said of the changes. "They released Terence, signed Brandon, obviously he's a great player and [they] drafted another in the top 10. It was an area where we didn't perform up to quota and that needed improvement. So we went out and did it. Hopefully if we play up to our ability, we'll have one of the best groups in the National Football League."

In 2011, the Cowboys allowed the eighth-most passes of 20 or more yards at 57. The league average was 52. When the defense gave up 300 yards to a quarterback, the team went 0-3 -- 11 NFL teams failed to win a game when that happened. The Cowboys allowed 19 plays in which opposing receivers went at least 21 or more yards, tied for second-most in the league. The team's 15 interceptions tied for 17th.

The Cowboys needed to improve the secondary in the offseason -- specifically the cornerback position -- but Scandrick didn't take the offseason moves as a personal slight.

"I don't take anything personal," he said. "This is a job and I'm here to do a job and I'm ready to compete and get better and focus on what I can do help the team get better."

With the changes made this offseason, the popular theory is Claiborne and Carr will start, with Jenkins becoming the No. 3 corner and Scandrick fitting in on passing downs.

In the past two seasons, Scandrick has gone back and forth between slot and outside cornerback. Today's NFL is more of a passing league, and you can almost never have enough corners on the field.

"This is year No. 5 for me here and I try not to think about that," Scandrick said of being mainly described as a slot corner. "This has become a passing league and when you're on a good football team, you're playing with a lot of leads, so teams are going to try and pass to get back in the game. It's not technically a starter, but it's not technically a reserve; it's [an] in-between thing. I kind of look at it as the glass half-full instead of half-empty."

IRVING, Texas -- Inside linebacker Bruce Carter has been able to get all of the first-team snaps with the Cowboys’ defense during the organized team activities in part because free-agent pickup Dan Connor is not cleared to practice because of offseason shoulder surgery.

Connor, who signed a two-year deal with the Cowboys in March, had surgery after last season ended in Carolina. He will be ready to go when training camp begins on July 30 in Oxnard, Calif.

Connor is one of five players coming off shoulder surgeries, a group which includes cornerback Mike Jenkins, running back Felix Jones, safety Barry Church and linebacker Alex Albright.

Church is the only one cleared to take part in the OTAs and split the first-team strong safety duties with Brodney Pool. Jenkins, Jones and Albright are all expected to be ready for training camp.

Connor’s absence will give Carter more practice time. Last summer Carter, a second-round pick in 2011, missed training camp and the first six regular-season games while coming back from knee surgery. He played mostly a special teams role for the final 10 games. He had eight special teams stops and one on defense to go with a pass deflection.

Nose tackle Jay Ratliff is not taking part in the OTAs yet because of a foot injury, while guard/center Kevin Kowalski and offensive tackle Jermey Parnell are slowed by ankle and hamstring injuries, respectively.

ARLINGTON, Texas -- Coach Jason Garrett took home the Cowboys’ home run trophy Wednesday evening, thanks primarily to a strange scoring system that strongly rewarded 250-foot fly balls.

Tight end John Phillips was clearly the star of the show at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, an event that resulted in Reliant making a $40,000 donation to Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Phillips was the only one of the contestants, which included nine Cowboys players, Garrett and Troy Aikman, to actually go deep.

Phillips’ shot that landed in the second row of the left-field seats was no fluke. He also had a blast that hit high on the left-center wall next to the 390-foot sign and several shots that landed on the warning track, but he hit mostly hard grounders during the championship round against Garrett.

“He looks like Mickey Mantle, for crying out loud,” said Garrett, who mastered the art of getting the ball up in the air because Reliant made donations for fly balls that left the infield. “I was going up there doing my thing, and he was trying to hit them all out. That’s why I was able to sneak in the backdoor.”

Most of the Cowboys frankly looked like football players who hadn’t swung a baseball bat in years, if ever. Miles Austin, whose best shot smashed off the wall in right-center, ranked a distant second to Phillips on the eyeball test.

Phillips’ baseball prowess is no surprise. He was a heck of a power hitter at itty-bitty Bath County High in Virginia. And he could see himself reporting to work at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington every day.

“When this football thing is over,” Phillips said with a grin, “I want to get a tryout.”

IRVING, Texas -- It seems ages ago -- how about two years ago? -- that wide receiver Dez Bryant burst onto the Cowboys universe.

Bryant enters his third season in 2012. He was asked after the second day of organized team activities Wednesday whether he feels like a veteran.

"In some ways, it depends on what I'm doing," he said. "I help out the guys when they need it. I show what I know."

Bryant is still working on running routes, commanding the playbook, understanding the NFL way and becoming a dominant force in the passing game.

The Cowboys still like Bryant as an outside receiver and won't move him into the slot as much as they do Miles Austin. But that's OK because Bryant, when he gets the ball, is dangerous.

Last season, Bryant finished second on the team in catches (63), yards (928) and touchdowns (9) to tight end Jason Witten. He missed one game with a thigh injury, had a handful of games in which he went without a catch in the second half and he didn't have a 100-yard game -- he still has only one.

"I feel like every year was just a learning experience," Bryant said. "I got better from [Year 1 to Year 2]. I hadn't played this year yet, but I feel much better and I'm confident in what I'm doing. When Coach calls out a play, I'm starting to already have the play before he already call it out. I'm getting better."

IRVING, Texas -- The Cowboys held the first of four organized team activities that will be open to the media at Valley Ranch on Wednesday, so we bring you some observations from the two-hour workout:

** Maybe it’s the product of not seeing him throw in four months, but Tony Romo was throwing the ball with a tremendous amount of velocity. Romo went 8-of-11 in team and seven-on-seven drills Wednesday with one drop by TE John Phillips.

** LB Sean Lee looked in midseason form by snuffing out a pass to the flat to FB Lawrence Vickers for what would have been no gain or a short pickup.

** QB Stephen McGee and rookie Tyrone Navikoff had a difficult time with the snap, muffing three before Navikoff was pulled in favor of Bill Nagy. And Nagy’s first snap with McGee went to the ground.

** WR Raymond Radway, who missed his rookie year with a broken ankle, was knocked out of practice briefly after getting poked in the eye.

** Dez Bryant, Kevin Ogletree, Akwasi Owusu-Ansah and Dwayne Harris worked as punt returners. Tim Benford, Radway and Lance Dunbar handled kick returns.

** With OLB DeMarcus Ware missing the workout, Victor Butler was with the starters and showed good awareness on a reverse by Harris by not allowing the wide receiver to get outside. Anthony Spencer did the same later in practice on a reverse to Miles Austin.

** WR Andre Holmes made a nice grab on a Kyle Orton throw in seven-on-seven drills while crossing the middle. Earlier, Holmes snared a Romo pass that was a little ahead of him.

** Rookie Saalim Hakin struggled in the rookie minicamp with drops and he struggled Wednesday. Unofficially he had three and the last brought receivers coach Jimmy Robinson over with some encouragement.

** Undrafted rookie CB Lionel Smith intercepted a McGee pass along the sideline.

** Rookie S Eddie Whitley ended practice with a nice breakup of a McGee throw to James Hanna. Whitley broke on Hanna’s route perfectly to bat the pass away.

** RB Phillip Tanner did not look any different after being put on injured reserve last year with a hamstring injury. He was quick and decisive with his cuts.

IRVING, Texas -- Inside linebacker Bruce Carter and guard David Arkin, the Cowboys’ second- and fourth-round picks in 2011, were bit players at best as rookies. They’d be starters if the Cowboys’ season opened right now.

Carter, who played 41 defensive snaps as a rookie after recovering from knee surgery, took the first-team repetitions next to Sean Lee during Wednesday’s OTA workout. Arkin, who was inactive every game last season despite being healthy, worked with the first-team offensive line.

Carter will compete with ex-Panthers starter Dan Connor, who signed a two-year, $6.5 million deal with the Cowboys this season, to start next to Lee. The Cowboys gave the speedy Carter a first-round grade coming out of North Carolina and considered him a steal with the 40th overall pick despite knowing that he wouldn’t be ready for the beginning of the season due to his knee.

“He’s really come into the offseason program and embraced it,” coach Jason Garrett said of Carter. “He’s gotten better physically. I think he’s healthier than he was last year at this time certainly. You can just see he’s getting more and more comfortable. He needs to play more football.

“He needs to play at a higher level, both in terms of his understanding of scheme and also just how you play relentlessly. That’s how you play football. He’s starting to understand that. You see flashes of that. He just needs to do it more and more.”

The odds of Arkin being a starter when the season rolls around aren’t as good. Mackenzy Bernardeau, who signed a four-year, $11 million deal with the Cowboys this spring, is sidelined after recently undergoing hip surgery.

The word on Arkin was that he should benefit tremendously from working with six-time Super Bowl champion strength coach Mike Woicik.

“I would say (Arkin has made) marked improvement from year one but has a long way to go,” Garrett said. “He’s two days into our football phase of the offseason. He’s done some good things out there but he has to improve, just like we all have to improve. He’s going about it the right way. He’s dedicated, he’s tough. He just needs to play more football.”

Some other notes about the depth chart of the first day of offseason media access:

*Brandon Carr, the $50.1 million headliner of the Cowboys’ free-agent class, worked at left cornerback. Carr played on the right side during his four-year tenure with the Kansas City Chiefs. Secondary coach Jerome Henderson said the coaching staff isn’t committed to Carr playing left corner.

*Third-year safety Barry Church was splitting first-team reps with free-agent addition Brodney Pool. Fourth-round pick Matt Johnson might also compete for the starting job next to Gerald Sensabaugh, but he can’t participate in Cowboys’ offseason workouts until his class at Eastern Washington graduates.

*Bill Nagy played center with the second-team offensive line. Nagy, a seventh-round pick last year, started at left guard until suffering a season-ending ankle fracture. He played some center at Wisconsin. Phil Costa, last season’s starting center, could face competition from Nagy and second-year undrafted center Kevin Kowalski, who did not participate in Wednesday’s workout for unknown reasons.

IRVING, Texas -- Dallas Cowboys first-round pick Morris Claiborne, who is recovering from left wrist surgery to repair ligament damage, probably won't practice with the team until training camp in late July.

Rookies, injured players, quarterbacks and wide receivers will practice at Valley Ranch for a few days before the team leaves for training camp in Oxnard, Calif., in late July.

Claiborne, who is wearing a brace during organized team activities, had hoped to return for the mandatory minicamp tentatively scheduled for June 12, but he said that's doubtful.

"I don't like it, but I know it's what's best for me in the long run and what's best for the team," Claiborne said Wednesday afternoon following the second day of OTAs. "I'm not trying to rush it. I'm just going to take my time and do what the trainers have me doing in the meantime."

Claiborne will wear a brace for two more weeks, then undergo therapy and if he gets cleared by team doctors, should be ready to practice in late July.

"You love to have him out here now," secondary coach Jerome Henderson said. "He's missing valuable reps. He's doing a good job staying in it mentally and standing behind a guy and having good questions. There is no way you can make up for the time you missed, it's tough."

IRVING, Texas – Later today, several Dallas Cowboys players, coach Jason Garrett and Hall of Famer Troy Aikman will head to Rangers Ballpark in Arlington for a home run derby to raise money for the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization.

Reliant will donate $500 for each home run hit during the event as well as more money for players who hit other bullseye targets.

Garrett isn’t counting on the long ball.

“Took batting practice the other night at Coppell High School and I counted I swung at 42 pitches and I hit 37 ground balls to third base, so we’ll see,” Garrett said.

But Aikman might be another story.

“Then to top it off Aikman is involved in this thing and I got a phone call at 6 o’clock last night that he hit three balls into the tennis courts at Coppell High School,” said Garrett, Aikman’s long-time backup. “Story of my life.”