There remains very little clarity when it comes to the tight end position for the Dallas Cowboys. We still have no idea who will start, and the Cowboys have been rotating multiple players in early during preseason games to see who works best with the offensive starters. The one consistency at the position, though, has been the dismissal of Rico Gathers. While Blake Jarwin, Geoff Swaim and Dalton Schultz all get snaps with the starters, the Cowboys have held Gathers out until the second half this preseason, and have barely featured him even when he has seen the field. He came down with five catches against the Arizona Cardinals, his best performance of the preseason, but most of them came during garbage time. They were all overshadowed by an ugly drop late in the fourth quarter.

But such plays are hardly surprising from Gathers, who has shown fans both the best and worst of the "basketball player turned tight end" archetype in successive preseasons. Last year, he looked to be a matchup nightmare. He was too athletic for opposing defenses to contend with, and he looked like a brilliant foil to the more methodical Jason Witten. But Witten didn't make mistakes. He didn't drop passes. He didn't run incorrect routes. He blocked. These are not things that Gathers has done this preseason.

And they are prerequisites to success in the Dallas offense. As much as the Cowboys would like to have a tight end who can stretch the field, they need one who serve as a safety valve for Dak Prescott and contribute in the running game. The best version of this offense has succeeded without a game-breaking tight end. It has never done so without a Witten. And even if Jarwin, Swaim and Schultz never live up to Witten's legacy, they at least bring the same basic skill sets to the table. The Cowboys don't have to change the way they use tight ends to accommodate them.

They would have to for Gathers, and it hardly seems worthwhile for a player who has one catch longer than 10 yards this preseason. That came against third-stringers. If the Cowboys had any faith that he could make those kind of plays against starters, they would have given him a chance to on Sunday.

That they didn't indicates what we already knew. Gathers has not had a good training camp on the practice field. He certainly hasn't on the preseason stage. And with three tight ends ahead of him on the depth chart, it doesn't matter how much potential he has. The Cowboys don't have a roster spot available for a developmental tight end. They can't replace Witten with one player. They'll have to do so in the aggregate. The tight ends that are ready to contribute now will have the chance to do so.

And it doesn't seem like Gathers has earned that chance. The Cowboys may try to sneak him onto their practice squad, and it's hard to envision anyone being too enthused about claiming him after this preseason. But the dream of Gathers stretching the field alongside another traditional tight end needs to be buried. It isn't happening in the 2018 season. It probably isn't happening ever.