Despite their 2-7 record, the Dallas Cowboys aren’t out of the playoff hunt just yet thanks to the train wreck that is the NFC East. With their football fate largely in their own hands, the question for the team going forward is the amount of effort they put forth into winning games.
The easiest way to tell if the tank is on is by looking at the kinds of injuries that are keeping players out of games. Football players are constantly banged up, whether or not they choose to battle through is up to both them and the team. What the Cowboys do on Sunday with Randy Gregory and Zack Martin will go a long way in determining the team’s outlook.
Randy Gregory will likely miss his second day of practice because of an illness. Mike McCarthy said it is not COVID related. He also said Zack Martin (calf) will do more in practice today. McCarthy said Martin was limited Wednesday mostly as a precaution.
— Todd Archer (@toddarcher) November 19, 2020
How cautious do they want to be with Martin? He’s the last man standing from the vaunted offensive line of yesteryear and while it’s hard to imagine the team punting on the season with a legitimate shot at making the playoffs, this is exactly how it would happen.
Given the circumstances of the pandemic, despite no positive-Covid test for Gregory to this point, it’s no wonder the team is playing it safe. After all, this is the team that just moved coaches to a bubble at the Omni Hotel at the Star in Frisco.
They are just days away from a brutal stretch of football in which the team will play three games in just 11 days, so resting players isn’t the end of the world, but not playing them would likely be the end of the season.
[listicle id=658140][listicle id=658135][lawrence-newsletter]