Amendola had a good mini-camp, but let's see how he fares against some of the veteran corners.

IRVING, Texas - So here we are, already more than a week into May, with the draft in the books, free agency all but over and now one rookie mini-camp behind us.

And we've got it all figured out it seems?

OK, not exactly. But it never seems too early for the prognosticators to start chiming in.

It never fails. The regular-season schedule came out last month and within hours, you heard someone say, "ummm . . . 12-4. Yep, mark it down."

Same with the draft. Mel Kiper Jr. says Darren McFadden and Jonathan Stewart should battle for the Offensive Rookie of the Year. What? It's May. That one is extremely funny because if you guys remember last year's draft, he also said a certain defensive end from Purdue was his pick for upcoming Defensive Rookie of the Year. Let's just say Anthony Spencer fell a few votes short of winning that.

From a team and roster standpoint, not much will really change on the squad now until training camp starts up in Oxnard, Calif., in late July. Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips doesn't like to tweak the roster much like his predecessor did. So the guys on the roster now will probably be the same headed to California.

The team won't change. But I'm sure our perceptions will.

Between now then the Cowboys will hold several OTA (Organized Team Activity) practices, although the media will only be on hand to watch one per week. But we'll be able to watch all three days of the June mini-camp, which will include the entire team.

And by entire, maybe, just maybe that will include a certain cornerback named Pacman. We'll see if Adam Jones will be reinstated by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell by then.

My take on that is Goodell needs to lighten up here at some point. Sure, he's trying to show he's the sheriff in town and all that. OK, I get it. But at some point, don't you think Jones might be better off with his teammates, working out and practicing, then he is just on his own? How can the guy show he's improved unless he gets the chance?

Goodell has said he will make a decision on reinstating Pacman some time before training camp. Thanks. That's just his way of saying, "I don't know, whenever I want." But you'd like to think this won't last too much longer and he'll let the guy get to his football team to see just what they're working with, both on and off the field.

Remember last year, one of the reasons the Cowboys and Wade Phillips were criticized for having what was poorly dubbed "Camp Cupcake," was because they worked so hard in the summer with the OTAs and the mini-camp. That's where they were installing the offense and defense and that's where the teaching part of the schemes were implemented.

So if Pacman misses that, he will definitely be behind if he just shows up at training camp. Hopefully, and most likely, that has been passed along to the commissioner's desk.

From a personal standpoint, it sure would be nice to finally see this guy up close. We've heard all the stories by now. We even heard his long interview with Michael Irvin. We've seen the TV clips, although half of them show him returning a punt or interception for a touchdown and the other half show him walking either in or out of a jail with a toothpick in his mouth.

Can we get some current stuff? It'd be nice to see what kind of person he is. And not just in an interview, but with his teammates, after a practice, in the locker room. Oh, and on the field covering receivers and fielding punts would be nice, too.

Speaking of seeing players on the field again, can we just tap the brakes a bit on rookie receiver Danny Amendola? OK, so the kid caught a few passes and run some crisp routes - basically against air - in the mini-camp.

Now all of a sudden, I'm hearing how there's no way the Cowboys can simply sneak this kid onto the practice squad.

What? Somehow he managed to "sneak" through seven rounds of the NFL Draft with 32 teams passing on him every time.

Sure, he caught a lot of passes last year in a gimmick offense. Lots of Texas Tech receivers have caught a lot of passes over the years. And only Wes Welker, especially once he joined forces with the best offense in the NFL, has productive in the NFL. So just because Amendola went to the same school, looks the same and has a similar build, it doesn't mean he's Wes Welker.

And please don't mistake this for me "hating on" Amendola. That's not the case at all. He might turn out to be a good player, one who could legitimately make this roster.

But the chances of him making the team were very long when he signed AFTER the draft. And I'm sorry but there's nothing you can do in shorts and a helmet, especially against nothing but rookies, where that should change.

He's still a long shot. Now, do all of that consistently against Terence Newman, Anthony Henry and Pacman Jones. And show off that punt return ability from college, and also be willing to run down on punts and kickoffs and throw your body around there. If that happens, now you might have a spot for this guy.

Until then, he's still fighting an uphill battle.

Not sure what to make of this latest quotes from Greg Ellis on Sirius NFL Radio the other day. Ellis is defending his teammate Roy Williams, saying he feels bad for the criticism that Williams is taking. And that part is understandable.

What I don't get is the part when Ellis said Williams told him last year that this defense doesn't fit him.

"Roy told me in training camp, he said, 'Greg this defense doesn't fit me. I don't fit in well with this defense at all," Ellis said in an interview on Thursday. "Obviously it came to be true just like he said. He doesn't fit what's going on here in Dallas right now. Maybe this year, if they decide to keep him for this season, Wade and them would kind of adjust some things to fit him better."

Really? I thought Wade Phillips told us last season that his defense doesn't change the secondary that much. In fact, he even said the defensive backs don't play that different from a 4-3 to a 3-4.

So how can the defense not fit Williams? I'm sure he's not being asked to do the exact same things he did when he first got into the league, playing in Mike Zimmer's scheme.

But still, it's not like the Cowboys didn't have him playing closer to the line of scrimmage last year. He was still sent on blitzes. And yet, he still didn't have one tackle behind the line of scrimmage or a sack.

Ellis also said Williams has isolated himself from the team, and has been working out much earlier than the majority of the players who arrive around 7:30 a.m. for the off-season conditioning program.

There could be lots of reasons for that. And that doesn't exactly mean there's a problem.

The funny part of all of this is that it comes from Ellis, who hasn't been shy about speaking his mind lately, especially when it pertains to job security. I'm actually surprised the interview didn't include anything about him worrying that Anthony Spencer will take his starting job. He's also hinted at that once.

Hopefully that won't be one of our top storylines again for this year's training camp.

And lastly, since we're talking about training camp storylines, HBO will certainly have some interesting topics to choose from. My guess is that they will try and cover as many guys as they can.

I'll have to admit, I'm fan of the "Hard Knocks" show. I somehow got hooked to last year's episodes of the Chiefs.

But it seems like it's a Top and Bottom show. They feature the high-profile guys, meaning Tony Romo and Terrell Owens will get as much attention as they will probably allow. And a few bottom-of-the-roster guys will be featured. HBO obviously wants to follow some players who will ultimately get released. That of course, makes for great TV, as dream-killing as it might be to the actual player.

But the guys who will probably be left off are the ones who just quietly do their job and do it well. Won't be surprised if Jason Witten, Terence Newman, DeMarcus Ware, Bradie James and probably all of the offensive linemen will get overlooked by the cameras. And in this case, that's probably a good thing.