Dez Bryant Responds to COVID-19 Concerns: 'I'll Take It Home,' Cowboys Ex Says Of Workouts
FRISCO - After we wrote that Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com said that Dez Bryant and his Dallas Cowboys should be cited by the league - and maybe law-enforcement officials - for their continued "flaunting'' of CDC recommendations and local laws banning gathering due the COVID-19 crisis, Bryant himself responded quickly in a tweet to CowboysSI.com.
"Either way,'' Bryant tweeted to us, "I have a whole workout facility at HOME and a field on the side of my house... I’m going to get it in regardless.''
And that is a sound solution to concerns expressed in this space, and by Florio.
"If you've got players who are violating the local laws that say 'Thou shall stay home during this pandemic,' and they are both creating a real risk of spreading the virus, and sending a horrible message to others who may be influenced to do the same thing. I would like to see the NFL do something," Florio said on 105.3 The Fan's "Shan and RJ" on Wednesday.
The message-senders: Dez Bryant, Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott.
There are some precise details in Florio's presentation here that one could quibble with. One, it's not clear what the punishment would be, certainly not from an NFL perspective. Two, Bryant is not an NFL employee; he's not presently subject to the league's guidelines. (For that matter, Dak Prescott is a free agent, so what jurisdiction does he come under with the league?)
And three, oddly, while Florio mentions that ex-Cowboy Dez Bryant and present Cowboys QB Dak Prescott have been front-and-center in their Twitter-released videos, he fails to mention that, as we reported earlier this week, Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott is also part of the workout group at what we opted to label "an undisclosed Dallas location.''
But Florio's general point is the right one ... and the same one we made last week, when Bryant and company first publicized his workout with Prescott. Beyond being unsafe for them to do it, and beyond being unsafe for anybody else they come in contact with after the workout, their high-profile exhibitions send an awful behavior message to people, young and old, who might take their cues from football stars.
Florio at Pro Football Talk wrote a scathing piece on how Prescott and Bryant "continue to flaunt their defiance of rules that have caused millions to change their habits dramatically."
What is NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to do?
Said Florio: "Even if you're not going to suspend anyone or fine anyone under the personal conduct policy. I want the commissioner to post a video, to issue a statement, telling all players who are in the NFL or hope to be back like Dez Bryant, that they must comply with all applicable state and local requirements as what they should and shouldn't be doing during this pandemic."
And now Dez Bryant offers us his logical answer: Take it home.
