Marvin Austin, the former second round draft selection of the New York Giants has signed with the Dallas Cowboys. Austin is 6’2 and 312 pounds and could easily eat up blocks for this linebacker group. Austin would most likely play the 1-tech position next to Jason Hatcher. Austin was highly regarded by the Cowboys back during the 2011 Draft but he didn’t fit the defensive scheme since the Cowboys were in a 3-4 at the time.
The Cowboys will be Austin’s third team in the last three seasons. He was recently released by the Miami Dolphins and with the injuries and recent release of Jay Ratliff, the Cowboys had an open spot. Edgar Jones was placed on the short-term injured reserve. Ironically enough that was the same injury for Jay Ratliff, it ended his season last year.
The film on Austin since joining the NFL is relatively limited. He only has six combined tackles in three seasons. In that time he has only played in 10 regular season games. If you remember Austin was in that scandal that resulted in his suspension alongside fellow teammates Greg Little and Robert Quinn back in 2010.
Obviously Dallas is taking a flyer on a guy and with their current situation at defensive line this is a low risk, high reward type of situation. Austin is the type of player who has always had first round talent, but seems to take too many plays off and plays when Marvin wants to. You could say that he is very immature but with Rod Marinelli as his coach, he may just be the guy to get the kind of effort that most teams expected.
