The Dallas Cowboys are ready to rock in their Week 14 contest against the Houston Texans. Carrying a three-game winning streak, Dallas will get some long-awaited help in their quest to reach 10 wins. Entering the season, wide receiver was the biggest question mark on the roster after a (perceived) rough offseason. The Cowboys jettisoned Amari Cooper to Cleveland, lost Cedrick Wilson to Miami and Malik Turner to San Francisco. The club did minimal work to augment the position, signing low-cost vet James Washington and spending a third-round pick on small-school product Jalen Tolbert.
Tolbert hasn’t looked NFL ready yet and Washington suffered three injuries within the first week of training camp, culminating in a broken foot that was supposed to be a 6-8 week injury. It’s now 17 weeks since and he’s finally ready; activated for the first time on Saturday and ready to play on Sunday. Washington takes the roster spot of CB Anthony Brown, who was placed on IR after tearing his Achilles in Week 13’s win. That leaves Dallas with a 52-man roster; one shy of league maximum.
Washington is a speedster, and has been pseudo practicing since before Dak Prescott came back from his thumb injury. The two have had two months to build chemistry, so hopefully he’ll be able to add an element to Dallas’ offense that has been missing. The Cowboys has been reluctant to give Kavontae Turpin much of a workload aside from special teams duties.
The club is elevating just one player from the practice squad this week, offensive tackle Aviante Collins. This is Collins’ third and final activation window, but the expectation is that eight-time Pro Bowl tackle Tyron Smith will be ready to be activated next week, rounding out the roster. For now, Dalls rolls into the in-state matchup with just 53 of 55 potential players eligible for the game, meaning that they will need to name just five players inactive. Here’s a look at the current roster.