Greg Simmons' 2019 Cowboys Training Camp Blog: Day 5

OXNARD, Calif. – We have to thank to our photographer/master breakfast chef Billy Caldera.

Every morning, he’s nice enough to whip up something to get Mike and I going. You often don’t know when your next meal is going to be. He has multiple recipes, from breakfast tacos to avocado toast, which he calls his millennial meal. We don’t care what he calls it, so long as it taste good. It always does. This year he has not set off the fire alarm… yet.

The big news Monday — it was the first day in pads for all of the players. That’s kind of like the “first robin of spring." For football it means only one thing: 

Let the hitting begin.

Now that didn’t come until the afternoon, so we spend our morning gathering interviews, including a sit-down with wide receiver Michael Gallup, who had an outstanding rookie season and wound up starting alongside Amari Cooper. That interview will run Tuesday night on The Nightbeat.

But as is our business, news soon started to break. First, Ezekiel Elliott has left the country and is headed to Mexico to train in Cabo. That sounds like that negotiations have stalled and he’s distancing himself from the team, but when you actually think about it, Cabo is closer to Oxnard than Dallas. If they did get a deal done, he would not be that far away from camp.

Closer to 3 p.m. — 5 p.m. San Antonio time — word starts to leak out that the Cowboys are bringing in Alfred Morris on a one year contract. This is the same Alfred Morris who played for the Cowboys in 2016 and ’17. He started in place of Elliott during his six-game suspension.

While this is breaking, Billy arrives in my room to inform me that I have a leak. This time it’s not news, it’s water. Since I just stepped in to grab some water, I had not checked it myself, but apparently it had been reported to housekeeping. Sure enough, there were signs of a water leak above the bathtub. What better place is there to have one? The hotel staff arrived shortly and inspected the damage, telling me there had been a problem with spilled water in the room above me. They could not have been nicer. They sent someone over to repair the damage and everything was great. If that’s the worst thing that happens during this trip, I’m ok with it.

The Nightbeat live broadcast is soon in the books. We offered to make the sacrifice and fly out to Cabo to get the exclusive with Zeke. So far, I have not heard back from anyone about our request. Maybe we’ll hear something tomorrow.

I am writing this in a car headed to UC Irvine. We’re visiting the Rams training camp and the three San Antonio-natives on the roster Tuesday afternoon.

If this reads a little disjointed, I’m car sick.