Witten eyes record after spleen injury, slow start

Witten was part of Bill Parcells' first Cowboys draft class in 2003. He played in 15 games, with seven starts, as a rookie, and missed the only game of his career with a broken jaw. Barring injury, he's about to complete his sixth straight season of starting every game.

That streak was in serious jeopardy after he took a hard blind-side hit on a broken play in a preseason game at Oakland. It was easy to rule him out for the opener after the diagnosis because the Cowboys started the season three days earlier than everyone else and had 10 days to get ready for Week 2.

Witten thought otherwise, even with his old-school former coach whispering in his ear about taking it easy during a phone call.

"He was like my dad: 'Take care of yourself now. Be smart,'" said Witten, a bit bemused. "Remember, this guy, 10 years ago when I had the broken jaw, it didn't seem like that was the same response."

The Cowboys were just happy to have him on the field against the Giants, so some balky play and two catches for 10 yards didn't faze anyone. He four catches against the Seahawks, but had the same number of drops, then two catches again, this time for just 8 yards, against Tampa Bay.

Witten finally broke loose with 13 catches for 112 yards and a garbage-time touchdown from Kyle Orton in a blowout loss to the Bears.

"I've never thought, 'Well, I'm about to taper off here, let's see if I can hang on,'" Witten said. "It's always been it gets higher every year. And going into this year, that's what it was."

With or without a lacerated spleen.

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