Unlike Week 1, there isn’t a ton of mystery in who the Cowboys will make inactive ahead of Sunday afternoon’s game. Dallas went into the Tampa Bay matchup relatively healthy. Everyone knew Michael Gallup was out, but the injury report was relatively think with Tyron Smith and James Washington on IR. Safety Jayron Kearse was the only question mark last week, as a neck injury popped up on Friday and made him questionable (he would play). The Cowboys were clearly going to have a bunch of healthy scratches and it would come down to strategy, not attrition.
In Week 2, though, things are different. The injury bug jumped up and took a chunk of flesh out of the roster, with Dallas ruling five players out already. That means that Dallas won’t have to rule out as many healthy players, but brings up another dynamic. The Cowboys will need to make some roster moves because several players who will need to suit up are currently on the practice squad. Also, game-day active rosters can have 48 players, as long as at least eight are offensive linemen. The Cowboys had eight lineman on the 53-man roster and at least one is already ruled out. Here’s our best guess as to how it will all shake out, from call ups to moving players to IR.
The Cowboys will need to add Cooper Rush, Will Grier and Brett Maher from the practice squad. Two will be called up, but 1 will need to be named to the active roster.
Predict that Rush gets named to the roster, the other 2 are elevations. So who gets cut or sent to IR? The Cowboys are probably able to withstand losing Basham more than McGovern, Kearse. He goes to IR.
Now Cowboys have to bring up someone to have 8 OL on game-day roster.
Smith, Farniok, Biadasz, Martin, Steele, Ball, Waltezko, Alec Lindstrom or Peters
Cowboys can’t elevate Isaac Alarcon because he’s an IPP exemption and needs to have that contract cancelled and be on the PS for 3 weeks before he can be elevated. So if there’s an injury to Farniok or Martin, then Tyler Smith has to move inside. The team will have to activate Lindstrom to protect a