The “rookie dinner” is a tradition among NFL teams, combining team bonding with uncomfortably large dining bills to make one of the most potentially brutal, non-violent hazing rituals around. It goes like this — rookies are strongly encouraged to take the veterans of their position groups out for dinner, and depending on how mean the veterans are, the bill gets pretty high and the rooks have to swallow it. Well, the Cowboys this year are trying to prove they’re a special team, and their rookie dinner sounds like it was awfully special.
Not content to split the first-years among their positions, the Cowboys just took the whole damn team to Nick and Sam’s steakhouse on Monday as they look ahead to their bye week, and it was apparently a hell of a good time — nothing like the tense money affair of the 2011 rookie dinner that bothered Dez Bryant so much. Which is good, because the bill was way up there:
.@TCrawford98 to me on #Cowboys party: 'To create different bonds w/in our team – amazing. Then the bill came: $55K. Not too bad.' pic.twitter.com/xu0UvGi2At
— fishsports ✭ (@fishsports) October 19, 2016
“Nope, because as far as I know, lots of the guys just paid for themselves,” said Dez, long an advocate of brotherhood over hazing. “Nobody getting punished. Everybody together.”
Tony Romo, for whom Nick and Sam’s is a favorite, apparently organized the gathering and involved Dak Prescott, the rookie phenom who might be taking his job if he continues to play at a high level while Romo is hurt. From what we’ve heard, this team is a far cry from the dysfunction of years past, and that will be key to fall back on once they face some adversity.
(Via Scout.com)
