Camp Notes for Sickos

Dak Prescott coined a nickname for the 2026 Cowboys offense: GOTI, which stands for Greatest Offense There Is. 

Doesn’t that just roll off the tongue and straight into the brain, making you want to run straight through a cinder-block wall?

GOTI is pronounced like John Gotti, the crime boss. Not GOAT-y, as in “This offense shares characteristics with the greatest of all time,” which would make more sense. Nor goatee, the beard style I have worn since it was fashionable 30 years ago. Nor Goatye, the fellow who sang that “Somebody That I Used to Know” song that made me want to swerve into oncoming turnpike traffic when it was always on the radio 15 years ago.

As a slogan/nickname/rallying cry, it sounds like it should have been workshopped a little more, but it’s on-brand for the Cowboys to settle for something that’s not fully baked. (Also, I don't know what the hell was up with that video, and I am sorry.)

The Cowboys and acronyms don’t mix. Outgoing defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus was famous for his HITS principle: Hustle, Intensity, Takeaways and (playing) Smart. You know you nailed an acronym when it needs parentheses to make sense, and also combines multiple parts of speech. Some sources diplomatically replace “(playing) Smart” with “Situationally Smart,” which would be HITSS. Whatever. Eberflus got fired for coaching a historically bad defense in 2025 and lost his head coaching job with the Bears because of a general lack of control over everything. A wobbly way with words is among the least of his shortcomings.

Sean McVay’s signature coaching acronym is HEART: Humility, Energy, Accountability, Relationships and Toughness. It’s still not perfect – “relationships” doesn’t fit among a list of intangible virtues – but it sounds like the work of someone who thought about it for 20 minutes, or cribbed it from a former boss or self-help book. Apparently, McVay can utter the word “humility” without bursting into flames like a demon trying to say The Lord's Prayer. Maybe he coined HEART to keep people from giggling when he said it. 

Not everything needs to be an acronym, folks. In fact, most lists are better off not being acronyms, just as most coaching/managerial philosophies are better off not being lists of buzzwords. 

The NFL’s acronym fixation reminds me of the 1980s, when if a heavy metal band had a short name, it was supposed to be a secret acronym for something. KISS was short for “Kids in Satan’s Service,” allegedly. AC/DC was short for “AntiChrist, Devil Child.” You can hear the reverse engineering in these acronyms, whose existence often came as news to the bands themselves, but they fooled both preteen boys and their Catholic Star-Herald reading mothers, making us both love and hate them even more. 

The 1980s hair-metal band W.A.S.P. cleverly included periods in their name to suggest that it was an acronym. Early pressings of their first record suggested that W.A.S.P. stood for We Are Sexual Perverts, which is what my peer group thought it stood for, though band members coyly claimed that it stood for We Ain’t Sure, Pal. They later admitted that they added the periods just to make the name stand out, probably to capitalize on the rumors about the names KISS and AC/DC. As an added bonus, the periods make W.A.S.P. easy to search for on the Internet.

Anyway, here’s “Animal (F**k Like the Beast)” by W.A.S.P. NSFW. Duh.

I knew exactly what was up with that, and apologize for nothing.

Where were we? Oh yeah: GOTI.

The Cowboys offense ranked eighth in DVOA in 2025 and has the talent to be even better this year. One thing standing in its way may be Brian Schottenheimer’s BIB principle: Boring Is Beautiful. George Pickens must also remember that he needs to follow the straight-and-narrow while under the franchise tag if he wants to get PAYD (Pay Attention, You Diva). And no matter how well the offensive plays, the defense cannot continue to play like it is Constantly Ruing the Absence of Parsons. 

Hmmm, it seems that coining acronyms is difficult, and that I stink at it too! 

Criticism of Prescott’s dakronyms aside, the vibes out of Cowboys training camp sound downright jubilant. For the first time in years, there’s no unforced-error contract crisis; Jerrah isn’t taking to the airwaves to blame edge-rusher salaries and gas prices on Woke. It sounds like Pickens is acting like the kid in algebra class who is only eligible for sports because of a behavior contract and is therefore slapping himself upside the head whenever he feels the urge to misbehave. Rookie defensive back Caleb Downs looks great; it would be a shock if he did not.

The only not-so-great news that came out of Oxnard over the last few days: nth-string tight end Princeton Fant left practice with a knee injury, and Jerrah is bibbling about selling a minority share of the Cowboys to Mark Cuban, who is babbling back.

Fant is most famous for being Noah Fant’s cousin, meaning he is not remotely famous. Cuban ranks among the top quartile of zillionaire doofuses when it comes to virtues like humility, energy and accountability, which would still land him in one of the upper rings of Dante's Inferno, but well above Jerrah. Stephen Jones may be worried that he will someday end up playing the title role in Hamlet, but it’s not like Jerrah is going to sell tomorrow, prompting Cuban to trade CeeDee Lamb. 

Cowboys reporter Bob Sturm captured the feeling at Cowboys camp in his Sturmstack newsletter. “It is hope. Just a twinge, but it is there. There is hope and maybe even a small amount of belief again … It feels different out here. They look like they might be worth our time this year.”

Don’t worry, Cowboys haters: They’ll Find Unforeseen Chances for Knuckleheadedness everything up somehow. That’s just the nature of the beast.

Rainy Day Bucs #6 and #50 

Let’s check in on Buccaneers training camp, the surliest place on earth.

You probably know that Vita Vea has asked for a trade last week and that Baker Mayfield felt so disrespected by the Bucs’ contract offer that he is ready to renounce capitalism. But scratch beneath the surface, and you will find more bad news coming out of Tampa.

“Bucs coach Todd Bowles clarified that the hamstring injury that has plagued outside cornerback and 2025 second-round draft pick Benjamin Morrison – forcing him to miss the start of training camp – is actually a different hamstring than the one that limited him last season,” ESPN’s Jenna Laine reported on Sunday.

Thanks for the clarification, Coach! Most of us were too busy listening to Mayfield turn into Che Guevara to notice that the second-year cornerback was even missing, let alone keep straight which of his hamstrings are FUBAR. (Now that’s an acronym with legs!)

Morrison’s injury is noteworthy because the Bucs cornerback room is both dreadful and dreadfully thin. Morrison was a charcoal briquet when healthy last year, which was not all that often. He's penciled in as a starter for 2026. Todd Bowles likes to blitz a lot, often forcing his cornerbacks into tough coverage matchups, but such tactics were usually disastrous in the second half of the 2025 season. Young cornerbacks like Morrison often improve when they get more reps, but you gotta stay healthy to get reps. 

It apparently rained hammers and nails in Tampa for a few days, which did little for both the mood and the thoroughness of the camp notebooks.

“And then there was the rain!,” reported friend-of-the-Zone JoeBucsFan. “It absolutely poured. Joe thought folks were going to start gathering animals by twos. But it was awesome. It was one of the best wet ball drill days Joe had ever seen at One Buc Palace.” Joe kicked off his Monday practice report with a photo from the outdoor session. It looks like a still from an Alice in Chains video. 

Todd Bowles eventually gave up on the wet balls and moved the Bucs indoors. I don’t know much about the Bucs’ facility, but most teams have to rearrange and curtail things when they move inside, and reporters are often crammed into a tight corner where they can’t see much. Soaked-and-miserable players are also sometimes excused from scheduled interview sessions with the soaked-and-miserable media. When many of a team’s stars would rather be elsewhere on even a perfect day, that’s probably for the best. 

Vea’s trade request and the Mayfield Manifesto drew attention to the dire mood surrounding the Buccaneers. This team is the Ghost of a Contender Past, slowly being forgotten by those of us still dwelling in the mortal realm like the spirits in Encarto. 

The Bucs may be projected to win the NFC South by DVOA, but they are also in clear danger of bottoming out this year. Mike Evans knew it, so he took less money for the opportunity to practice inside the Chernobyl sarcophagus. Lavante David realized it and decided to pull a Reverse Tom Brady and spend more time with his family. Vea realizes it and now demands a Jeffery Simmons-sized bag to stick around. 

As for Mayfield, he and the Bucs would be headed for an amicable divorce if Mayfield were capable of doing anything amicably. Like Vea, he expects long-term security and a sinking-ship surcharge to stick around. Jason Licht, formerly the Mozart of the short-term in-house contract extension, can no longer convince veterans to sign on for one more year, and he’s not ready to shift into Mickey Loomis turbospending gear and offer hefty long-term deals to 30-somethings.