The Cowboys have been granted a good sign, as their second-year tight end with limited football exposure will get a chance to work with the coaches a over a week prior to OTAs. Head coach Jason Garrett stated Gathers is eligible and will participate in the rookie minicamp this weekend, starting Friday.

ALERT: TE Rico Gathers is eligible to & will participate in #Cowboys Rookie Minicamp, coach Jason Garrett tells me. @1053thefan — mike fisher ✭ (@fishsports) May 10, 2017

The minicamp is geared towards first-year players, but since Gathers did not accrue a season of service for the Cowboys in 2016, spending all year on the practice squad, he is eligible to go out and work.

Gathers has had the opportunity to learn from future Hall-of-Fame tight end Jason Witten as he continues his transition from basketball to football. Gathers hadn’t played organized football since junior high before being drafted by Dallas. He believes he is the heir apparent to Witten, and says this year is the year he’ll break out and show it to the Cowboys. Though, that was the plan for Gathers the entire time — he was signed to a contract roughly four times the normal amount of a regular practice squad player at $499,990.

Gathers has also had the opportunity to catch passes from another Cowboys’ great in Tony Romo during practice. Romo and him would routinely dissect the first defense during practice, but he was never brought up to the active roster, even with injuries to Geoff Swaim and James Hanna being more blocking oriented.

Moving forward, Gathers sees that situation changing.

“I see them trying to bring me up,” Gathers said on March 24, “so I can truly show my potential that I showed all year long on the practice squad, when I created a lot of problems for our defense.”