Getty Taco Charlton
For Taco Charlton, the gloves are off.
Forget cryptic tweets and passive-aggressive missives. The third-year Cowboys defensive end is going straight for the jugular — and barreling straight to the point — regarding his desire to shake loose from Dallas.
After retweeting words of encouragement from NFL defensive lineman Datone Jones, who wrote, “Free the homie!” in response to Charlton’s tweet about playing this season.
Then, Taco penned his own musing.
“Trust me the last thing I want to do is to have to go to social media to get what I want so I can play football again,” he wrote on Twitter.
Charlton isn’t going to get what he wants, at least with the Cowboys, any time soon. He’s been a healthy scratch for the first two games and further plummeted on the depth chart Monday, as veteran DE Robert Quinn returned from a two-game NFL suspension.
Which in turn prompted a deflection from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who was asked about Charlton’s status with the organization.
“I know there is some discussion. We don’t get into that. I am really excited about getting Robert Quinn back. That is really big for us,” Jones said Sunday, via Jori Epstein of USA Today.
Prior to the team’s Week 2 game in Washington, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport implied a Taco trade may be consummated this week, aligning with the news that Dallas held discussions with Miami about stud defensive back Minkah Fitzpatrick. The Cowboys, too, have supposedly engaged in player-for-player talks with an unnamed team involving Charlton and an undisclosed player.
Through it all, Charlton has vacillated between cautious optimism, that Dallas will have a change of heart on the 2017 first-round draft pick, and intense resignation, that Dallas will never let him see the field again.
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Garrett Responds
Jerry broke his silence on Charlton, so Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett followed suit. Asked Monday in his availability with the media, Garrett took a page from Bill Belichick’s handbook, feigning ignorance on social media while spouting off the requisite buzzwords.
“I don’t really spend much time on social media,” he said, per ESPN’s Todd Archer. “. … Yeah, he’s just competing for a spot to get a jersey each week, like a lot of guys on our team. What we’re doing to try to do is play the best guys and the guys who give us the best chance to win. And they have to earn those opportunities in practice each week.”
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Follow Zack Kelberman on Twitter: @KelbermanNFL