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During a lost rookie season, Connor McGovern still felt as if he won big.
Now, he’s anxious to make a big impact on the Dallas Cowboys.
They were supposed to be playing today, in the Divisional round of the NFC Playoffs, and McGovern was supposed to help them get there.
At least that’s what the Cowboys thought when they made the former Lake-Lehman High School and Penn State star offensive lineman their third-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft.
Neither scenario worked out for Dallas.
McGovern never made it to the field after tearing pectoral muscles on two separate occasions before preseason games even started.
And that torrid 3-0 start the Cowboys opened the season with fizzled into an 8-8 record that left them out of the playoffs.
So things are about to change in Dallas.
Jason Garrett, the head coach who drafted McGovern last season, was fired after missing the postseason in six of his nine full years on the job.
“I’m really grateful he saw something in me and drafted me,” McGovern said. “But you learn coming into this league, it’s a business. You’ve got to do what the owner thinks best.”
Owner Jerry Jones, desperate for the team’s first Super Bowl title in 25 years, replaced Garrett as the head coach of the Cowboys with former Green Bay Packers Super Bowl winner Mike McCarthy.
“I’m absolutely fine with it,” McGovern said. “It’s my first coaching staff that’s ever been changed. From what I’m reading and what I know, it’ll be interesting.”
McGovern doesn’t know McCarthy.
The Packers fired McCarthy in the middle of the 2018 season, so he wasn’t around to conduct interviews and gauge talent when McGovern participated in the NFL Combine following his junior season at Penn State last April.
But from his work in years past, McGovern can’t help but get charged up about playing for his new boss.
“Growing up,” McGovern said, “you look back, the Packers have always been one of the top, if not the top, winning percentage teams in the NFL and Mike McCarthy built that. I just think he brings an old-school mentality.”
McGovern’s mentality is to be on the field for every play.
“Since I started playing, I missed a game once, with a concussion, my freshman year of college,” McGovern said.
That’s why it was so difficult for him to miss his first NFL season.
During one of the Cowboys mini-camps, McGovern suffered a torn minor pectoral muscle while extending his arm across his body doing a punch drill — a short, quick burst offensive linemen use to gain leverage on charging defenders they’re blocking.
“I was just punching across, I kind of felt a pain in my chest,” McGovern said. “I thought it was just sore.”
It turned out to be a tear of the minor pec muscle, a triangular muscle that allows arm movement from one side to the next, which shut him down for a bit.
What happened next turned out to be devastating to his chances of playing during his rookie season.
At the start of training camp, McGovern tried to punch again, and got punched back by an agonizing pain.
“Second practice back,” McGovern said. “It felt like a knife cutting through the top of my chest. I came back a little too early, but I wanted to show myself.”
He wound up missing the season with a torn major pectoral muscle — which makes up most of the muscles in the chest.
“It was a clean tear,” McGovern said. “They couldn’t operate because there was nothing to attach it to. It took four months before I could even do a pushup.”
He saw his teammates make a postseason push, but a pair of three-game losing streaks during a 5-8 finish, including a 17-9 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, ultimately cost the Cowboys the NFC East.
Heaven knows, the Cowboys could have used McGovern.
They lost starting left guard Connor Williams with a season-ending torn ACL on Thanksgiving and lost this replacement, Xavier Su-a-Filo, to a broken leg in the second half of that Dec. 22 loss to the Eagles. Before that, the Cowboys were without left tackle Tyrone Smith, who was recovering from an ankle injury in Week 5 against the Packers, and then had right tackle La’el Collins leave a game against the Detroit Lions with a knee injury in Week 11.
McGovern initially worked at all five positions on the offensive line when he arrived in Dallas, then concentrated on guard and center — the two spots where he started at Penn State — before being listed as a backup center for depth purposes at the start of training camp.
“That was the biggest struggle at first,” McGovern said, “watching the rest of the team practice. But I tried to look at it as a redshirt year, which I never had in college. A grew a lot mentally and physically.”
In the end, he believes he may be better off for it.
“I was in every (team and unit) meeting, watching like that,” McGovern said. “All the veterans on the offensive line were very helpful. (Cowboys center) Travis (Frederick) was a great example for me. He’s one of the smartest people, on and off the field, I’ve ever met in my life. I was watching how he took notes, learning what he saw in different defenses, different schemes.”
McGovern is confident that knowledge will only improve his chances of making an impact with the Cowboys. And he’s certain the Cowboys believe he’ll be an integral part of the team’s offensive unit under McCarthy’s leadership.
“I think they definitely do,” McGovern said. “We don’t know if anyone’s going to retire. I give them a lot of security. I can play anywhere on the line, that gives them a lot of options.”
And after this season, McGovern is confident he can also bring a lot of knowledge.
“It’s kind of the same as coming into your freshman year of college, where the guys are a lot better than what I saw in high school,” McGovern said. “In college, you might see one guy or two per team who’s an elite player. Now, every single guy is an elite player from each school. Everybody is talented, everybody’s elite.
“The biggest thing is how big of a mental game it is,” McGovern continued. ” It’s all about watching film, learning their (opponents’) techniques, getting a leg up on them. It could be the difference between finishing a block or letting the guy run over the top of you.”
If McGovern learned anything from his first NFL season, it’s that he’s ready to run with the big boys.
“I think I’m definitely ready for this league,” McGovern said. “From what I’ve seen so far I think I have a very good shot of coming out and having success with these guys.”
He just wants to stay healthy enough to show it.