The Dallas Cowboys' skill position players may get most of the headlines and the glory, but the team's offensive line has perhaps been the NFL's most valuable unit as a whole in helping to captain Dallas' offensive renaissance in 2014.
Behind the scenes and on the field, 31-year-old veteran Doug Free has assumed the role as leader of the offensive line, both vocally and through his actions.
“Doug brings the things to the table that we don’t have as a young group, which is experience, the game intelligence that you learn just through the years and really that kind of sense of leadership as well as far as kind of pointing us in the right direction,” center Travis Frederick said, via Todd Archer of ESPN Dallas. “He does a tremendous job at it, and we’re really glad to have him.”
For Free, his ascension to the status of locker room leader is a natural evolution based years of NFL experience.
“I think the main thing to being a leader of the room is you don’t necessarily have to be the best player on the team,” Free said. “It comes with age to some extent and experiences. The guys trust you, knowing what’s going on schedule wise, things of that sort; also talking to the coaches when there are issues that come up. That’s part of being the leader of that group. We’ve got a bunch of grown men in the room. Everybody knows how to get the job done and get it done on the field and off the field. But sometimes you just have to keep things going.”
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