Category: 2022 playoffs

Cowboys-Buccaneers wild-card injury report: Tyron Smith limited

One team has a very long list of mentioned names, the other a short one. Each has interesting things to say. Here’s the latest injury roundup. | From @KDDrummondNFL

The countdown is on. The Dallas Cowboys and Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been thinking about each other for a long time, but on Thursday they began their on-field work in anticipation of their all-eyes-on-me duel. The wild-card round of the 2022 playoffs begins on Saturday, but it ends on Monday night with the two teams rematching. Dallas and Tampa began their seasons with each other and one franchise’s year will come to an end at the hands of the other. Thursday was the first day of practice for both after each kind-of-sort-of tried in Week 18.

Dallas had relatively great injury news, at least to start the day. While there are several key players on injured reserve for the year, there are four key guys who had concerns as recently as last week who are not concerns any more. Corner DaRon Bland (chest) isn’t even listed after leaving the loss to Washington, and two other starters in Tyler Biadasz and Leighton Vander Esch were full participants. There are a couple new names though, as right tackle Tyron Smith showed up with a knee injury.

In years past, Smith would get Wednesday’s off, and Thursday is basically Wednesday when the game’s on Monday, but this is the first practice report he’s appeared on since returning from his hamstring tear. Also, safety Tyler Coyle played well after being elevated last week, but he’s been lost for 2-to-4 weeks with an MCL sprain suffered in practice today.

Meanwhile the Buccaneers sport 14 players on their list of injuries, but nine of them were full participants. Among the limited players of interest are three offensive linemen and DT Vita Vea. Also not listed is center Ryan Jansen, who is on IR but practicing. He’s missed all season and is a longshot to return for this game. Not a longshot but currently on IR is Dallas DT Johnathan Hankins, who is set to make his return after four weeks out.

Here’s a look at the full initial practice report.

Cowboys legend Jason Witten surprises award-winning HS player, talks playoffs and Hall of Fame

Witten presented Denton’s Jackson Arnold with the nation’s most prestigious award in high school sports, then talked playoffs and Canton. | From @ToddBrock24f7

For all the accolades and superlatives, former Cowboys tight end Jason Witten has downright pedestrian numbers when it comes to one category. Sure, he played in more NFL games than any man ever at his position. He ranks second all-time among tight ends in targets, receptions, and receiving yards. He missed just one game in 17 seasons. He went to 11 Pro Bowls. He’s a no-doubt Hall of Famer.

Yet Witten played in just eight playoff games over his illustrious career. And he walked off the field victorious in a paltry two of them.

The Cowboys legend sat down with Cowboys Wire to preview the current team’s chances in Monday night’s wild-card game in Tampa, but he also talked about that gold jacket that’s proven elusive thus far for three of his former Dallas teammates.

And he introduced Cowboys fans to a Metroplex youngster who’s ready for big things at the next level, having just surprised the emerging player with the most prestigious award in high school sports.

Xavier Rhodes blowing Cowboys away at cornerback

Xavier Rhodes, signed just days ago, has been blowing the Cowboys DC away with his play and could factor into the postseason. | From @ReidDHanson

Since losing Anthony Brown on December 4, the Cowboys cornerback position across from Trevon Diggs has been in a constant state of flux. From the Kelvin Joseph experiment, to Nahshon Wright, to DeRon Bland, to Trayvon Mullen, Dan Quinn has been searching for answers on the boundary.

The Cowboys have mixed and matched their way through the end of the regular season, testing combinations, roles, and situations. At face value, many seem like terrible ideas. Even DaRon Bland, the Cowboys standout nickel cornerback, is a poor fit outside. Nothing has seemed to work and it’s causing panic in Cowboys Nation among the fans. Dan Quinn, on the other hand, is not so concerned, even stating, “I feel very comfortable where we’re at.” Part of that comfort could be because of the new presence of Xavier Rhodes.

 

After his release from Buffalo, the Cowboys added 32-year-old cornerback, Xavier Rhodes, on January 7. The former Pro Bowler joined the Dallas practice squad initially but figures to be a legitimate player when the Cowboys take the field in Tampa on Monday night.

Much like other veteran free agent additions the Cowboys have made this season, Rhodes is certifiably past his prime. Like Jason Peters, T.Y. Hilton and Anthony Barr, he’s no longer the player that earned Pro Bowl honors in years past, and no longer a cornerstone player in which to build a championship roster.

But the Cowboys don’t need him to be. Like the others, Rhodes could still serve an important role for a contender like Dallas.

Quinn’s sense of calm could also come from him knowing the strengths and weaknesses of his players and his confidence that he can put each of them in position to succeed. He’s already spoken to the fact that he’s spent the last several weeks testing the abilities of players to prep for the games that truly matter.

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Cowboys activate practice window for Johnathan Hankins ahead of wild card round

The big DT says he feels ready to go after a pec injury held him out for 4 weeks; he’ll look to keep the Bucs’ run game grounded on Monday. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Johnathan Hankins was missed.

Granted, it’s hard not to miss a 6-foot-3-inch, 340-pound man when he’s suddenly not where he’s supposed to be. But when Hankins went down with a pectoral injury against Houston in Week 14, the big man’s absence was felt.

The Cowboys activated the defensive tackle’s 21-day practice window on Wednesday, clearing the way for him to work with the team and perhaps even be back on the field Monday night for the first round of the playoffs.

“I feel good,” Hankins told Patrik Walker of the team website. “I feel like I could’ve been back out sooner, but with the [injured reserve] rules, I had to be out four weeks. But I’m not mad about it; it just gives me more time to get my body right and ready for the playoffs. The time is now.”

Hankins came to the Cowboys in late October after a trade with Las Vegas and hasn’t logged more than 33 defensive snaps in a game since he joined the team. But he proved quite effective in late November and early December, helping to hold Dalvin Cook, Jonathan Taylor, and Dameon Pierce to 72, 82, and 78 rushing yards, respectively, in his last three outings.

“I thought the first couple weeks with John, we were getting him ready to go,” Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn said this week. “Then I thought it just clicked: his space and how to fit in and how we play. … I’m definitely looking forward to having the big fella back inside. However a team wants to play, you have to have the big guys, have to have the rushers who cover. That’s the chess match on defense. Make sure: Do you want to go wide open? You’ve got to have the guys to do that. Want to close them down, get bigger? Have to have enough to do that. That’s the game within the game and having guys like [linebacker] Leighton [Vander Esch] and Hankins back will make that job a lot easier.”

In the Cowboys’ first game after Hankins’s injury, Jacksonville’s Travis Etienne ripped off 103 yards as the Jaguars totaled nearly 200 on the ground in their overtime win.

If he is, in fact, active for Monday’s tilt, Hankins will look to help sink a Tampa Bay rushing attack that’s already been stuck in the harbor for much of the season.

The Buccaneers rank dead last in the NFL in rushing attempts, rushing yards, rushing touchdowns, and yards per carry.

After gashing Dallas in the season opener for 127 yards on the ground, Leonard Fournette hasn’t come within 50 yards of that in any contest since. He ranks 40th leaguewide in rushing yards and is averaging just 41.8 yards per game.

Rookie Rachaad White could be more of a problem. The third-round draft pick out of Arizona State logged just six carries for 14 yards back in Week 1, but he’s amassed 771 yards from scrimmage over the course of the season and has been listed as the team’s starting running back since Week 10.

Tampa Bay leads the league in passing attempts, and Tom Brady may well continue with that approach.

But having Johnathan Hankins back on the Cowboys’ interior defensive line could go a long way in making sure that the Bucs’ running game, which has hit triple digits just three times all year as a team, remains missing in action Monday night.

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Cowboys’ playoff run: Home-field advantage, grass or turf, is a real thing

The numbers prove that all teams, not just the Dallas Cowboys, are at a disadvantage playing on the road and on a different surface. | From @ReidDHanson

The Dallas Cowboys put forth a valiant effort in their charge to steal the NFC East from the Eagles. Alas they fell short, slotting into the fifth seed and destined for a nomadic playoff journey on the road. This fate was largely met with a shrug. Plenty of teams win on the road in the playoffs so the Cowboys will just have to be one of them, right?

A recent observation regarding how the Cowboys fair on the road has gained a near-viral clamor in Cowboys Nation this week. The Cowboys, dominant on turf, are quite the contrary when forced to play on grass surfaces.

Suddenly the idea of playing on the Bermuda grass down in Tampa doesn’t sound so menial. As Jon Machota pointed out, the Cowboys are 1-4 on grass this season. The slower surface is arguably stealing the athleticism away from Dallas’ top playmakers.

Cowboys lose backup center to waiver wire

Dallas looked to re-sign Shepley to the practice squad until Indianapolis claimed him Tuesday; Tyler Biadasz is expected to return soon. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Even after the regular season officially concluded on Sunday, the Cowboys continued making their usual personnel moves as they gear up for what they hope is a long postseason run.

But their latest bit of roster shuffling has backfired, leaving them just a little bit thinner at a position that’s had some issues of late.

Backup center Dakoda Shepley was claimed by the Indianapolis Colts on Tuesday, one day after being waived by the Cowboys and just three days after he had been promoted to Dallas’s active roster.

The 28-year-old had been signed by the Cowboys in early September and spent most of the season on the practice squad. He earned three gameday elevations; in Week 8 versus Chicago and Week 10 at Green Bay, he saw just a handful of special teams snaps. He got into Week 11’s rout of Minnesota for his first action on offense.

Shepley was signed to the 53-man roster this past Saturday as insurance depth at center, with Tyler Biadasz out and Connor McGovern filling in. Shepley again made it in the game for a small number of offensive plays in the 26-6 loss to the Commanders.

The Cowboys officially waived Shepley on Monday, ostensibly with the intention of re-signing him to the practice squad, but he had to last 24 hours on the waiver wire first.

The Colts didn’t allow that to happen; they claimed him Tuesday.

Due to league rules regarding waivers during the playoffs, Shepley must wait until after the Super Bowl to join his new club, even though Indianapolis is not part of the tournament.

Shepley loses out on postseason play as well as the extra earnings that come with being on a playoff club.

Biadasz is expected back in time for the Cowboys’ Monday night game in Tampa. Reserve lineman Matt Farniok could also be making a return soon.

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Cowboys look to break curse, record first playoff win in navy jerseys

Dallas is 0-3 in postseason games wearing navy-colored jerseys; they’ll pair them with white pants Monday, a combo that went 2-0 this year. | From @ToddBrock24f7

The Cowboys will look to break a few streaks on Monday night if they can topple the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the first round of the playoffs. A win would mark the club’s first postseason victory since 2018 and their first tournament road win since the 1992 postseason.

But if the Cowboys can escape Tampa with a victory, it will be their first playoff win wearing navy-colored jerseys… ever.

The team has announced that they will wear their navy jerseys and white pants to face the Bucs. It’s the same combo they wore in Week 5’s 22-10 win over the Rams and Week 8’s 49-29 victory against Chicago. (On Thanksgiving Day, the Cowboys did wear their throwback jerseys with white pants. While navy is the primary color, the “double-star” scheme on the shoulders makes those jerseys different than the regular navy set.)

The Cowboys first unveiled true navy-colored jerseys for the 1981 season. Prior to that, the team’s “road” jerseys were royal blue, and they were worn with the team’s regular light blue pants, and gray pants years before that.

The last on-the-field appearance for those uniforms (which many fans believed were cursed) was the 20-7 NFC Championship loss to Philadelphia in January 1981. The last postseason win in royal blue? The 1978 conference championship that put Roger Staubach & Co. in Super Bowl XXIII.

The Cowboys have played plenty of other road playoff games along the way: 11, to be exact. But thanks to the tendency of most teams to sport their colored jerseys in front of their home fans, the Cowboys were left to wear their traditional white-top set for those matchups.

Since switching to navy, Dallas has worn colored jerseys in three prior postseason games: 1982’s NFC title game loss to Washington, the 1996 divisional loss to Carolina, and 2003’s wild-card loss to, again, Carolina. All of those postseason losses came in grey pants.

As the home team, Tampa Bay got to select their jersey color for the upcoming Monday night contest. The Cowboys, forced into wearing colored jerseys, have opted to go with white pants rather than the silver pants they wore under navy in Weeks 3 and 18.

Using data compiled from The Gridiron Uniform Database, the Cowboys first used the navy-on-white pairing in 2017 and have worn it a total of eight times since then- including the two games earlier this season- but they’ve never before worn navy-on-white in a postseason game.

Their overall record in that uniform combo: 6-2.

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Safe Returns: Jones says McCarthy job as Cowboys HC not in jeopardy as playoffs begin

The owner says there is no outcome Monday versus the 8-9 Buccaneers that would put McCarthy’s status as Cowboys head coach at risk. | From @ToddBrock24f7

Mike McCarthy wasn’t hired to rack up 12-win seasons.

He was brought in as head coach to turn the Cowboys into a team that is, to borrow the phrase owner Jerry Jones used back in July, “viable in the playoffs.”

Now, with a second straight postseason berth, questions have once again surfaced about McCarthy’s future with the organization if the Cowboys don’t make- at the very least- a deep run through the NFC bracket.

Jones, though, isn’t ready to make Monday night’s wild-card showdown with Tampa Bay any sort of make-or-break moment for his third-year head coach.

“No. I don’t even want to- no. That’s it,” Jones told Shan & RJ on 105.3 The Fan during a Tuesday morning call-in when he was asked if McCarthy’s job could be at risk with a playoff loss to the 8-9 Buccaneers. “I don’t need to go into all the pluses or minuses, but I’ve got a lot more to evaluate Mike McCarthy on than this playoff game.”

Despite a 12-5 regular-season campaign, the confidence of Cowboys Nation has wavered in recent weeks. There was the blowout of a poor Indianapolis squad that actually wasn’t a blowout at all over the first three quarters. That was followed by a four-point squeaker over a one-win Houston crew. A mistake-filled overtime loss to Jacksonville. Two consecutive slugfest wins over teams starting backup quarterbacks. And, of course, the top-to-bottom terrible showing in Sunday’s finale against a depleted Washington roster that had zero left to play for.

Dallas’s recent body of work is concerning enough that the Cowboys opened as favorites by only three points to a sub-.500 team.

But Jones expressed belief that the team will rally around each other as well as their coaching staff.

“I have real confidence, all the confidence in the world in Mike and our offensive line coaches and our offensive personnel, our coordinator. I have all the faith in the world that we can make the kind of adjustments we need to make this week,” Jones explained. “I can see us playing better. Got to play better at Tampa, but I have a lot of confidence in our coaches to get that straightened out.”

The constant hot-seat whispers seem to always surround this team, even after an overall successful season. But until the Cowboys can get over this 27-year speed bump and finally make it back to the NFC title game, the questions will linger.

And despite this latest dismissal of the topic from Jerry Jones, nothing will definitively answer those questions- at least for another week- quite like actually being viable in the playoffs and notching a win in Tampa.

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NFL Playoffs Predictions, Opening Odds: Cowboys-Buccaneers play Monday night

The game dates and times are set and the opening lines have been released. Here are our predictions for all contests including Cowboys-Bucs. | From @KDDrummondNFL

The NFL playoff picture is all set with the Green Bay Packers’ loss sending the Seattle Seahawks traveling to San Francisco to take on the red-hot 49ers.  The rest of the NFL already knew who they’d be playing against and now everyone knows when as well.

The playoff schedule was announced at the conclusion of the SNF matchup, and as has been expected all weekend, the Dallas Cowboys will be in the final matchup of the weekend. They will travel to Tampa Bay for a rematch of Week 1 when they take on Tom Brady and the Buccaneers in the final of six games this coming weekend. Here’s a look at the kickoff times of the other five matchups and predictions for each contest.