The Dallas Cowboys are only six days away from the NFL’s opener where they’ll take on the defending Super Bowl champions in the form of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. There’s still hope the underdog Cowboys will have their full complement of players at their disposal but it’s beginning to wane.
Right tackle La’el Collins has been dealing with a neck stinger that forced him out of practice a week ago that seemed innocuous at first glance, but may be more serious than originally thought. Head coach Mike McCarthy and company are at the least putting in a contingency plan in case he’s unavailable Thursday night.
Mike McCarthy said Ty Nsekhe and Terence Steele will be ready to go if La’el Collins can’t play Thursday night at Tampa Bay https://t.co/kB1Go7Dppc
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) September 3, 2021
“A holding pattern” is never what fans want to hear and it isn’t necessarily an overreaction to believe Collins won’t be ready in time for kickoff. He also isn’t a stranger to Dallas’s history of slow-playing injuries either. Last season the word was that he was dealing with conditioning issues as the reason for his unavailability. That eventually morphed into a season-ending hip injury that was the cherry on top of the garbage-flavored sundae the team’s offensive line experienced in 2020.
If called upon, the backups’ task isn’t a small one. They’ll be forced into action against a fearsome front featuring Jason Pierre-Paul, Shaq Barrett and Joe Tryon-Shoyinka who are all capable of putting quarterbacks in the dirt. On the bright side, Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott has the green light with McCarthy saying only, “He’s full-go.”
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