Jason Witten Returns

The soon to be 37-year-old tight end Jason Witten has decided to come back out of retirement to rejoin the Dallas Cowboys for the 2019 season. Ian Rapoport of NFL.com reports the veteran tight end has signed a one-year deal and is set to earn roughly $5 million. Abruptly last year Witten announced his retirement after the Cowboys finished with a record of only 9-7, which caused the team to miss the playoffs.
Witten retired having played his 15th pro season with a career from 2007 to 2016. Witten finished his career with 1,152 career receptions, which ranks fourth in NFL history, behind Hall of Fame wide receiver Jerry Rice, Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez and what looks to be a future Hall of Fame wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. His 12,448 receiving yards ranks 21st in league record books, but second among tight ends behind only Gonzalez’s 15,127 yards.
Also, he has had a Cowboys franchise record of a total of 239 career games played and played all 16 games per season for 15 straight years with only have missed one game during his entire career, dating back to his rookie season in 2003. After he retired, he was then offered to become an ESPN Monday Night Football analyst.
This past Thursday Witten announced he is leaving the analyst booth to come back to the field. After Witten decided to go back to the field ESPN released a statement, “We thank Jason for his many contributions to ‘Monday Night Football’ and to ESPN over the past year and wish him continued success; we have seen many former coaches and players go into broadcasting before eventually returning to the game they love, so we understand Jason’s desire to return to the Dallas Cowboys. In the coming weeks we will determine our ‘MNF’ plans for the 2019 season.” Of course it leads some people to wonder the reasoning behind Witten’s decision to leave a great job at ESPN. Witten said, “The fire inside of me to compete and play this game is just burning too strong.” He also stated, “This team has a great group of rising young stars, and I want to help them make a run at a championship. This was completely my decision, and I am very comfortable with it.”
The Cowboys certainly had a breakout season with such a young team having gone all the way to the divisional round, but the one area that seems to need improvement is their offense. While they have up and coming weapons such as Tavon Austin, Michael Gallup and a game changer in Amari Cooper, Witten can only add leadership and experience that could possibly help the team make a super bowl run.