Tag: 2024 season week 11

Report: Highly-praised Cowboys safety out for season; may require surgery after gruesome injury

From @ToddBrock24f7: Special teams coordinator raved about Markquese Bell, whose reported shoulder dislocation will cost him the rest of the 2024 season.

The annual war of attrition has claimed yet another Cowboy, with one member of the coaching staff offering an all-too-rare reminder this week of the human side to the sport and the very personal cost to the men who make it their life’s work.

Safety Markquese Bell will miss the remainder of the 2024 season, it was announced Wednesday. That decision comes after the third-year man out of Florida A&M suffered a dislocated shoulder while making a tackle in Monday night’s game with the Texans.

Per Todd Archer of ESPN, multiple sources report that the injury may require surgery. It looked quite serious in the moment, and Bell needed considerable help getting off the field after it happened in the second quarter of the 34-10 loss.

After a second season that saw him get converted to linebacker under Dan Quinn, Bell had seen fairly limited action back at safety with Mike Zimmer’s defense in 2024. He had played just 34 defensive snaps, but Bell had become a real standout among special teams players.

Special teams coordinator John Fassel visibly choked up talking about Bell this week during his weekly press conference.

“That one hurts,” Fassel said when asked about the loss of the 25-year-old.

“He’s played as good [on] special teams through 10 games as I can remember,” Fassel told reporters Tuesday. “He got hurt doing what he does best, just flying in there, diving. He’s going to be okay, but man. Just, gosh. I’ve just spent so much time with these guys in meetings and the practice field and the game field. And the emotions of [going] undrafted to wanting a little bit more and accepting his role and thriving in his role… damn. I’m hurting for him, because he was on a mission. He was as good as we’ve had in a while.”

A reflective Fassel went on to talk about the relationship he’s developed with so many of his players, world-class athletes who typically don’t get the credit they deserve for sacrificing themselves over and over on seemingly routine plays that often fly well under the average fan’s radar.

“These young men are very human. Gosh, and they want so much out of their career. And I want it for them,” Fassel explained. “They’re special humans, and what they do on a daily basis is very unique.”

But injuries come part and parcel with the sport for everyone who plays it, and now the Cowboys must find a way to replace Bell on the field for the final seven games of the schedule.

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Just like Bell went back to work the morning after getting hurt, to take the first steps down his road to recovery. Fassel talked about seeing Bell in the trainers’ room just that morning and was already looking ahead to seeing him back on a football field.

Fassel hinted, though, that both men know that both being back in the star when that happens is not guaranteed.

“He had the whole thing slinged up, and he was emotional, too, because he knew what he was producing. Maybe not everybody else does, but he was producing as good as it’s been. Hopefully he’ll heal up and be back better than ever. I’m sure he will, because he’s a tough-ass kid. He is an outstanding football player. He’s got some great stuff in his future.”

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McCarthy: Cowboys players ‘better be frustrated’ after latest loss; ‘We deserve to win’

From @ToddBrock24f7: The coach used the word 9 times after the 34-10 loss, but remains committed to playing whoever gives the team the best chance to win.

This Cowboys Tuesday is presented by the letter F.

Fans were undoubtedly throwing the letter around liberally as they watched their team get mauled again on Monday night. Fifth loss in a row. Fouls. Flags. Fumbles. Fourth-down failures. A foolish fake punt.

There was no shortage of opportunities for plenty of F-words in the 34-10 loss, but head coach Mike McCarthy kept coming back to a different one in his postgame press conference.

“It’s very frustrating. It’s frustrating for everybody. Frustrating for the players, frustrating for the coaches, I know it’s disappointing for the fans,” McCarthy told reporters late Monday night from the podium at AT&T Stadium.

He used the word frustrating (or some derivative) nine times in a ten-minute Q&A session.

“Hell, they’d better be frustrated,” he said of his players. “I mean, we’re all frustrated. I think there would be something wrong if they weren’t frustrated.”

Well, something is definitely wrong, even with the rampant frustration. Yet the coach struggled to pinpoint exactly why this team keeps losing so badly.

“We’re not playing well enough or executing well enough, coaching well enough to overcome some of the mistakes we’re making at critical times in the game.”

Like going 0-for-4 on fourth down conversion attempts. Like committing nine penalties (not to mention having four defensive players flagged for personal fouls on the same snap). Like getting into the red zone just once and not having a single snap in goal-to-go. Like fumbling twice on the same play and helplessly watching it turn into a scoop-and-score for the opponent.

Like taking Brandon Aubrey’s field goal off the scoreboard and then coming away empty after a slapstick series of plays that turned the ball over on downs inside the Houston 10.

Like that ill-advised fake punt in the Cowboys’ own end and on the offense’s first possession, the second such debacle in three weeks, and one which McCarthy described as “a poor call by us.”

Like asking the backup quarterback coming off a historically bad performance to attempt the most passes in his career and the most throws by any Cowboys quarterback in a game in over three years.

“I would have liked to have been a lot more balanced, run to pass,” McCarthy explained. “I don’t want to throw the ball 40 times.”

Except it was 55 (56 if you count Bryan Anger’s four-yard lob… in a situation that needed nine).

But despite all the mistakes, miscues, and missed plays, McCarthy says he won’t be doing anything radically different as the team prepares for two more games in the next 10 days.

“We’ve just got to stay after it,” the coach said. “I’m disappointed, I’m frustrated for our guys because I know how much they put into this. We’ve just got to keep banging away.”

Don’t expect much to change during this short week of practices, because McCarthy says practices aren’t the issue.

“Our problem isn’t effort during the week; I haven’t seen that. We’re just not making critical plays.”

Don’t look for some massive overhaul of the roster, either. Despite a record that currently has the team staring at a top-10 draft pick, McCarthy has no interest in giving up on his starters in favor of simply getting younger guys game reps.

“We’re playing the best players to win the game,” he said.

“I have every reason to believe that we can get better. We have to be cleaner. The discipline and the details; you’re tired of hearing about it, but I’ve just got to keep pushing it and making them focus on it. And I do believe we’ll come out on the other side.

“We’ve got to win. We deserve to win. We deserve the opportunity to win, and that’s about putting the best people out there, and right now they’re young. Our young guys are getting a lot of experience, but we need to do whatever the hell we need to do to win.”

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By that logic, then, McCarthy should be at least open to the idea of making a change. Many Cowboys fans are ready to move on from backup quarterback Cooper Rush and get third-stringer Trey Lance a lot more involved.

Even McCarthy himself admitted he should have done so Monday night.

“I think the one thing I should have done at the end, and I didn’t do it, was put Trey in there. I could have gotten him a series. That’s one thing I would second-guess myself on,” he told media members… though whether that was an oversight or a message to ownership is up for debate.

“I really just didn’t want to get into putting him in for a play or two, because he’s more than a gadget player, in my opinion. We had him prepared to take a series, and frankly, there at the end, I should have given him that series. I regret not doing that.”

Add that to the long list of frustrations to come out of the Monday meltdown. But come Tuesday, McCarthy will be back at work, looking to turn it around the only way he knows how: by leaning on the coaches and players around him to keep putting in the work and trusting that the process will lead to something positive.

“Just trust the people in the room, the people that are doing the work. I do, I believe in this locker room,” McCarthy explained.

“There is good coming out of this. You don’t see it because we’re not winning games, but there’s young men that are getting an opportunity to do more, and I do believe that will pay it forward. It needs to hurry the hell up, because we need it in six days.”

Forward. Another F-word. And right now, for a very frustrated Cowboys team desperate to distance themselves from some of the losing squads of the franchise’s past they’re being lumped in with, it may be the only one that offers any hope.

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Breaking, Literally: AT&T Stadium roof piece falls on field before Cowboys-Texans

From @ToddBrock24f7: A chunk of metal fell from as crews opened the venue’s retractable roof just hours before the Monday Night game was set to kick off.

Cowboys fans may have thought nothing else could go wrong this season.

As if.

For a brief period late Monday afternoon when it looked as though the retractable roof at AT&T Stadium would be open for Monday night’s primetime meeting with the Houston Texans. Now that’s in doubt after some sort of mechanical issue sent a giant piece of metal fall to the turf below and left more torn-away scrap hanging in the rafters.

Stadium workers began opening the roof several hours before kickoff, signalling a rather rare event for the venue that first opened in 2009. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones famously said recently- after the most recent complaints about the setting sun shining through the east/west-oriented windows causing problems for players- that the stadium, with its glass walls and retractable roof, was constructed to mimic the feel of an outdoor venue.

Yet the roof hadn’t been opened for a game in two years, and it’s been opened for less than 25% of all Cowboys games ever played there.

With perfect conditions forecast for Monday night (and possibly to distract slightly from the team’s godawful 3-6 record), Jones and the team made the decision to open the roof for the nationally-televised game.

But shortly after the roof opened, a large piece of metal fell from the structure. Media members from the various TV outlets were already on the field doing pregame reports. The debris is seen in video posted by NBC DFW’s Noah Bullard.

The roof was closed again and per The Athletic‘s Jon Machota, crews are investigating, ostensibly to determine whether or not it can be safely opened again.

Update: The mandated 90-minute countdown to kickoff has started. The roof will officially remain closed for the game, as it would have had to have been opened prior to that deadline.

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While there were thankfully no injuries, the punchlines surrounding the incident in this “train wreck” of a Cowboys season will write themselves for some time.

ESPN’s Ryan Clark, speaking from the Monday Night Countdown desk set up on the turf at the stadium, cracked, “The bottom done already fell out in Dallas; the top might as well, too.”

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Cowboys rookie WR set to make first NFL start Monday vs Texans

From @ToddBrock24f7: Ryan Flournoy teased the news on Instagram. It’s unknown how that may affect playing time for options like Jalen Brooks or Jonathan Mingo.

Whether they should be tinkering or tanking probably depends on your personal point of view, but the 3-6 Cowboys are still throwing the kitchen sink at their offensive lineup heading into their Week 11 matchup with the Houston Texans.

Cooper Rush has already taken over at quarterback thanks to a serious hamstring injury to Dak Prescott. Head coach Mike McCarthy finally admitted last week that Rico Dowdle is the team’s lead running back. Even depth OL pieces like Asim Richards and T.J Bass have seen live game action over the past several weeks.

And now a rookie wide receiver appears ready to contribute in a new way as the Cowboys embark on a brutal stretch of three games in an 11-day span.

According to an Instagram post he made on Monday, sixth-round draft pick Ryan Flournoy will make his first NFL start when the Cowboys host their intrastate rivals at AT&T Stadium.

The 25-year-old out of Southeast Missouri State has two catches on three targets so far this season and has appeared in five games for Dallas, logging 47 total offensive snaps.

What’s not immediately clear is what kind of ripple effect Flournoy’s start might have on the rest of the WR corps. CeeDee Lamb popped up on the injury report over the weekend with a back issue, though the team is reportedly optimistic about his status.

“Everything right now is pointing for him to play,” a source told NFL Network’s Jane Slater midday Monday.

Brandin Cooks has been sidelined since the beginning of October, and third-year man Jalen Tolbert has already started every game for the Cowboys this season. Jalen Brooks started Week 9’s game in Atlanta, and KaVontae Turpin got the nod in Week 6 versus Detroit. Jalen Cropper has been used very sparingly but has yet to crack the starting lineup.

Dallas also added second-year option Jonathan Mingo 13 days ago via a trade with Carolina. He has been expected to make his Cowboys debut Monday night as well.

But now it’s apparently Flournoy’s turn to start. While the starting lineup is often merely a ceremonial honor dictated simply by the personnel package required to run the first pre-scripted play, it could be assumed that the team has at least a few routes designed to try to really see what they have for the future in the 6-foot-1, 200-pounder. And given the demands that the next week and a half will put on Cowboys players, this move may be simply a pre-emptive way to spread the physical toll around.

Earlier in the season, though, team owner Jerry Jones hyped up the rookie by comparing him to a longtime favorite of Cowboys fans.

“He’s got Dez Bryant stuff to him,” Jones said prior to Flournoy’s NFL debut in the Week 5 win over Pittsburgh.

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Flournoy will theoretically get some chances Monday night in a Dallas passing attack that struggled mightily last weekend. In his first start at QB since 2022, Rush delivered a historically poor performance against the Eagles in a blowout loss, continuing something of a theme for the blue and silver.

The Cowboys currently rank first in the league in pass attempts per game (39.4), but they fall all the way to the bottom 10 when measuring net yards per attempt (just 5.5).

So the opportunities will likely be there. Now it’s up to Flournoy to capitalize on them.

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‘Train wreck’: ESPN College Gameday crew rips Cowboys during Monday Night Football promo

From @ToddBrock24f7: Kirk Herbstreit & Co. didn’t hold back on their thoughts on the Cowboys as they promoted this week’s Monday Night matchup with the Texans.

Saturday mornings are great. For football fans, it’s a time to sleep in a bit, turn on the TV, and then see where ESPN College GameDay is this week in what has become a ritual for millions: preview the day’s collegiate matchups, break down some Xs and Os with Nick Saban, listen to a possibly-shirtless Pat McAfee get riled up, throw in a tearjerker story from somewhere, watch some kid (probably) shank a field goal try, read some clever signs, and wait for Lee Corso to maybe put on a silly mascot head before settling in for a day’s worth of the sport we love.

Even if the pro team you follow is in the middle of an unequivocal stinker of a season, Saturday morning is a safe space where you can soak in all the competitive spirit and rich pageantry of the gridiron without being reminded of how badly your Sunday squad sucks.

Unless you’re a Cowboys fan.

With the GameDay crew broadcasting live from Athens, Ga. in advance of the Bulldogs-Volunteers clash later in the day, ESPN also took a moment to tease their upcoming programming- namely, the Week 11 installment of Monday Night Football that will pit the 3-6 Cowboys against the Houston Texans in a primetime battle for bragging rights within the Lone Star State.

And hoo boy, Kirk Herbstreit had things to say.

Coming back from a commercial break, Rece Davis read his scripted voiceover of the obligatory promo… and then absolutely teed up his deskmate and Thursday-night NFL color man.

“Boy, things are going great in Dallas,” Davis snipped.

“Just keep putting Dallas in those high-profile windows,” Herbstreit taunted, to the snickers of the other hosts. “They just keep losing games. That is a train wreck. A train wreck.”

“And they keep talking,” prodded McAfee.

“Great body language, if you watch them play,” Herbstreit added.

“Other than that,” Davis wrapped up, “what’s your opinion on the Cowboys?”

“Awful,” concluded Herbstreit.

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Enjoy your Saturday, Cowboys fans. Heck, this week we even get a bonus Sunday to just be casual observers.

But sadly, the train is going to just keep coming.

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It’s Week 11, and Cowboys’ McCarthy just named his lead RB

From @ToddBrock24f7: Rico Dowdle has quietly surpassed two RBs with 7 Pro Bowl nods between them to land in the top-20 in a couple key rushing stats.

The Cowboys’ rushing attack has been a debilitating weakness all season, with the team ranking 31st out of 32 teams in rushing attempts per game, rushing yards per game, and rushing yards per carry with the season now more than half over.

The team’s running-back-by-committee approach has been the primary contributing factor in the eyes of most observers. The Cowboys split carries among Ezekiel Elliott and Rico Dowdle to start the season, finally called up Dalvin Cook only to have him turn in very pedestrian numbers, and they feed Deuce Vaughn and Hunter Luepke so sparingly it’s easy to forget they’re still on the team.

Of the five, only the fullback Luepke has taken offensive snaps in every game of the 2024 campaign, with the Dallas coaching staff unwilling to further commit to any of their other backfield options.

Except, maybe, now.

When asked Thursday about Dowdle, head coach Mike McCarthy- in Week 11 but for the first time this season- said out loud what most of Cowboys Nation has been thinking for months.

“He’s the lead back,” McCarthy said during a pre-practice press conference, “I thought he had a really good first half [versus Philadelphia], and I think that’s really illustrated by the attempts. Rico needs to touch the ball.”

Dowdle’s 10 carries for 50 yards in the first and second quarters of Sunday’s 34-6 loss to the Eagles represented his busiest and most productive first half of the season. And while the game getting away from the Cowboys in the third stanza slowed down the 26-year-old’s stats, Dowdle has quietly managed to climb his way up the rankings of several key categories among the league’s rushers.

At an average of 4.5 yards per carry, Dowdle currently stands 19th across the NFL, ahead of flashier names like Joe Mixon, Alvin Kamara, David Montgomery, Najee Harris, Breece Hall, and even ex-Cowboy Tony Pollard.

Filter running backs by success rate, and it gets even better. That metric calculates how often a ballcarrier gains at least 40% of the yards required on first down, 60% on second down, and 100% on third or fourth down.

Dowdle’s success rate of 55.4% puts him 10th in the league. That kind of clip makes his limited usage- just 83 rushing attempts (36th place) and only 374 rushing yards (35th place)- seem like outright negligence on the part of the Dallas coaching staff.

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Many have blamed that reluctance to let Rico run on some assumed mandate from the front office to lean on Elliott, the two-time rushing rushing champ, fan favorite, and prodigal son who returned to the team in 2024 after an obvious decline led to his release in early 2023. Elliott is having a career-worst season production-wise and has reportedly been enough of a distraction that he was made inactive and left in Dallas for a Week 9 away game.

Cook was signed late in the preseason but stashed on the practice squad until Week 8. While the hope was that Cook would be some sort of savior by providing fresh legs midway through the schedule, his performance has only emphasized why the Cowboys should have made a bid during free agency for Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs, or the aforementioned Mixon (all top-10 rushers currently).

Vaughn simply doesn’t look like a legitimate NFL running back (and that’s not a cheap shot at his height), and Luepke was never meant to be a volume rusher.

Dowdle is the lead back in Dallas… but not only because the team has no other choice (save for the practice squad’s Malik Davis, who hasn’t logged a carry since the finale of the 2022 regular season). Though he’s had to claw for every snap and even stand by during an unexpected inactive declaration in San Francisco due to a mystery illness, Dowdle, the undrafted free agent out of South Carolina, now leads the Cowboys- and by a lot- in rushing attempts and rushing yards. And he’s top-five on the team in receptions and receiving yards, too.

It’s shaping up to be a lost season for the Cowboys, but with eight games still left to play, it’s become clear that Rico Dowdle will be one of the keys to whatever glimmers of success the team is able to eke out.

And now, it seems, that’s finally clear enough for McCarthy to say out loud.

“Got to get him the ball,” the coach said Thursday. “That’s my focus, just continue to give him opportunities.”

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Cowboys starter with rehab group to start Week 11; backup OL has practice window activated

From @ToddBrock24f7: LG Tyler Smith was seen sporting a knee wrap on Wednesday, the same day Chuma Edoga’s 21-day practice window was activated.

Get ready for the possibility of more personnel swapping along the Cowboys’ offensive line.

With rookie left tackle Tyler Guyton already having sat out last Sunday’s game against Philadelphia with a neck/shoulder injury, backup Asim Richards got the Week 10 start and played well enough to leave Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy “impressed,” despite the team’s 34-6 blowout loss.

Guyton is reportedly “trending towards being healthy” for the team’s next outing, per the team website. But now the spot next to him on the Dallas O-line is suddenly worth monitoring with the 6-4 Houston Texans coming to town for a Monday night intrastate clash.

Third-year left guard Tyler Smith was seen wearing a knee wrap during the media portion of Wednesday’s practice session, according to multiple observers. The 23-year-old worked with the rehab group, along with cornerback DaRon Bland, who has yet to make his 2024 debut after a foot injury suffered in camp.

It is not known what sort of issue Smith is experiencing. The team will not release its first practice report of the week until Thursday.

Houston enters Week 11 ranked seventh leaguewide in sacks, with 29.

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In a separate move that may or may not be coincidental, reserve lineman Chuma Edoga had his 21-day practice window activated on Wednesday. The veteran had been sidelined with a toe injury prior to the season opener. Edoga started six games last season– four at left tackle and two at left guard- and could therefore theoretically be in play if Smith is unable to go.

T.J. Bass is officially listed on the team website as the primary backup to both right guard Zack Martin and Smith at left guard.

Smith currently has the third-most snaps on the Cowboys offense through nine games this season, appearing in nearly 96% of the unit’s on-field action.

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McCarthy reveals Cowboys’ Week 11 QB plan; report names third-stringer to be added

From @ToddBrock24f7: Cooper Rush will remain the starter vs Houston, per the coach. A late report says Will Grier is being signed to the team’s practice squad.

Cooper Rush turned in dreadful numbers during Sunday’s 34-6 pounding at the hands of the Eagles, but the poor stats won’t keep him from getting his second consecutive start next Monday night when the Cowboys host the Houston Texans to close out Week 11.

Head coach Mike McCarthy confirmed that the team would be moving forward this week with Rush as QB1, ostensibly leaving Trey Lance as the backup once again.

But a third quarterback is on the way, the coach explained in his Monday afternoon press conference, though he declined to share details about who it is.

“I’m just going to let him go through the process and make sure everything goes well,” McCarthy said, “but we’re in the process of signing one.”

NBC5 sports director Newy Scruggs reports that it is Will Grier, the 2019 third-round draft pick out of West Virginia who served as a backup in Dallas in 2021 and 2022. Grier, 29, was released by the Eagles on Nov. 7. He’ll join the practice squad.

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Rush, the seventh-year veteran who came in to the Week 10 divisional clash with a 5-1 record as the Cowboys starter, struggled to get anything going against Philadelphia. Per 96.7 The Ticket’s Matt McClearin, his 45 passing yards were the third-fewest by a Cowboys quarterback in a game with 20 or more attempts in franchise history.

The Cowboys teased the possibility of a special package of plays for Lance, the former first-round draft pick whose athleticism has made him a 14-month developmental project in Dallas. (Grier was cut after acquiring Lance in a 2023 trade.) Lance ended up taking 15 offensive snaps Sunday, going 4-of-6 passing for 21 yards and an interception.

Combined, Rush and Lance threw for just 66 yards on the day and had a team passer rating of 49.1.

Starter Dak Prescott was in New York on Monday to meet with a specialist about the partial hamstring avulsion he suffered in Week 9. Surgery is reportedly scheduled for Wednesday pending the results of that consultation and would put Prescott on a recovery timetable of about three months.

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