Cowboys’ Tyrone Crawford ‘crazy excited’ about defensive line

The Dallas Cowboys defense is either all becoming increasingly delusional or their defense is going to surprise a lot of people. Defensive end Tyrone Crawford is “crazy excited” about the unit headed into the 2014 season.

After DeMarcus Ware and Jason Hatcher left in the offseason, and were subsequently replaced by signing Terrell McClain and Henry Melton and drafting DeMarcus Lawrence, there wasn’t a lot of optimism that the unit that struggled last season improved.

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And that was before middle linebacker Sean Lee went down with an injury and will likely miss the entire ’14 season.

“I see it when we’re out there,” Crawford said, via the Dallas Morning News. “I see it when we bond. What we talk about as a defense, I’m just getting that feeling right now that we’re going to have a great year. I don’t know, I just have a feeling.

“With the guys that we have and the hunger that’s within everybody right now, it’s amazing. I’m crazy excited.”

It isn’t the first time we’ve heard a Cowboys defender come out ooze optimism about the 2014 season. Former first-round draft pick Morris Claiborne said he thinks the Cowboys secondary can be amongst the best in the league, and that includes the Legion of Boom of the Seattle Seahawks.

“We believe that we can be the best in the league,” Claiborne said, via the Dallas Morning News. “We got some unique talent on our team, especially in our secondary. With us three in general, from the way we work and the way we go at it, we’re pushing each other each and every day.

“We feel like there’s no starting corner. All of us have the ability to go out and play, and we’re going to go out and compete like that. All of us know it. We help each other, but at the same time, when we’re on the field, we compete against each other.”

You have to like the optimism and with Rod Marinelli taking over the defense anything is possible, but we’ll hold off believing what they have to say until training camp and we see some proof in those meaningless preseason games. Viewed as a unit of spare parts, those chips on their shoulders might serve as motivation for the the 2014 season.