Tag: 2024 season week 5

Cowboys CB fined more for end-of-game facemask incident than guilty Steelers WR

From @ToddBrock24f7: As the Week 5 game went final, George Pickens yanked Jourdan Lewis to the ground by his facemask. But Lewis received the bigger fine.

Cowboys fans who stayed up all the way until the end of the team’s Week 5 tilt against Pittsburgh saw Steelers wide receiver George Pickens commit an egregious foul against cornerback Jourdan Lewis just after the gun sounded on Dallas’s 20-17 victory.

But nobody saw Lewis being the one to get punished more harshly by the league.

In its weekly report of fines handed out for the previous week, the NFL declared that Pickens would be docked $10,230 for the act of unnecessary roughness that came after Lewis recovered a fumble to finally end the multiple-lateral last-ditch effort by the Steelers offense on the game’s final play.

Lewis, ball in hand, got in Pickens’s face and clearly said something to which the third-year receiver took offense. Pickens grabbed Lewis’s facemask and yanked him the the ground.

Lewis was also fined by the league- for taunting- but incredibly, his fine amounted to $11,255, over a thousand dollars more than Pickens.

Huh?

Fines are levied according to a pre-determined menu whereby each violation equates to a set dollar amount. But it’s hard to watch a replay of the Cowboys/Steelers end-of-game sequence and think that anything Lewis might have said was somehow worse than what Pickens did in retaliation.

True, Lewis hurled some words. But Pickens could have left a fellow player injured.

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Lewis and Pickens were getting after each other all night. As the Cowboys players made their way to the locker room after the game, cameras captured Lewis saying, “Pittsburgh need a new receiver. George Pickens weak.”

Per Nick Harris of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the 29-year-old veteran expressed regret for the comment.

“Honestly, I shouldn’t have said that,” Lewis said. “It was an emotional game. There was some chatter on the field. One thing led to another. He had a moment, I had a moment. It was too emotional. I shouldn’t have said it.”

Now both Lewis and Pickens will pay for their respective emotional outbursts… but Lewis will inexplicably pay more.

Cowboys safety Donovan Wilson was also fined- also $11,255- for a late hit that extended Pittsburgh’s fourth-quarter drive that resulted in a go-ahead touchdown.

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Report: Cowboys DE avoids season-ending injury but will require surgery

From @ToddBrock24f7: Marshawn Kneeland lasted just 4 plays in relief of 2 other injured Cowboys stars. He’ll miss at least a month with a partial meniscus tear.

When it rains, it pours. And not just from the clouds over Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh on Sunday night.

Once the game finally got underway after a lengthy weather delay, a Cowboys defender being asked to step up due to other injuries suffered one of his own just four snaps in.

Rookie defensive end Marshawn Kneeland suffered a partial meniscus tear on the first series of the night for the Cowboys defense. The injury came during a tackle of Steelers quarterback Justin Fields. Kneeland was carted off the sideline and did not return for the duration of Dallas’s 20-17 win over the Steelers.

Multiple outlets are reporting Monday that the second-round draft pick avoided a season-ending ACL tear, but he will need surgery to repair the damage in his right knee. According to ESPN’s Todd Archer, Kneeland could miss four to six weeks while he recovers.

The Western Michigan product is now the fourth edge rusher to go down with an injury this season for Dallas. Sam Williams was lost for the season in late July, Micah Parsons is considered week-to-week, and DeMarcus Lawrence will be on injured reserve through Nov. 3.

Kneeland will almost certainly be moved to IR as well as the team figures out a plan for at least the next month.

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Chauncey Golston, Tyrus Wheat, and Carl Lawson took on extra snaps versus the Steelers after Kneeland went down in the first quarter. All three ended the night notching half a sack on Fields.

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Jerry Jones hypes rookie WR set to make NFL debut: ‘He’s got Dez Bryant stuff’

From @ToddBrock24f7: The Cowboys owner invoked the name of an all-time fan favorite. The 6th-round draft pick models his game after Jerry Rice. We’ll soon see.

A Cowboys-Steelers matchup- in primetime, no less- rarely needs a lot of extra juice. After 33 all-time meetings, the Cowboys hold just a one-game edge in the series. But the interconference rivalry was built largely on Super Bowls. To wit: they’re the only teams to meet in the big game three times, the two franchises have 16 appearances between them, and a total of 11 Lombardi Trophies sit in their respective lobbies.

And while this Week 5 meeting doesn’t hold that same kind of overall importance, it could nevertheless go a long way in predicting what the rest of the Cowboys’ 2024 season will look like.

Though the team sits at 2-2, the general impression around Cowboys Nation is that the bottom could drop right out of this thing any moment now. The two losses have been embarrassing blowouts, injuries have already sidelined several major playmakers, a vocal faction of fans is lobbying the owner’s family to relinquish control of the team’s day-to-day football operations, and a nasty gauntlet of opponents awaits on the schedule.

Many Cowboys fans already need a glimmer of hope to cling to.

Enter Jerry Jones.

The team’s Chief Eternal Optimist addressed concerns about a depleted wide receiver corps on Friday by pumping up… wait for it… Ryan Flournoy. The sixth-round draft pick will be active for the first time on Sunday and looks to make his NFL debut helping to fill in for six-time 1,000-yard receiver Brandin Cooks.

Flournoy is a largely unknown commodity outside The Star, but Jones had not just rave reviews for the 24-year-old, but also a big-time comparable to dangle in front of the Cowboys faithful.

“He may be something special for us,” Jones said on 105.3 The Fan. “On a personal basis, he’s got Dez Bryant stuff to him. Boy, is he an athlete. I’m glad to see him get this opportunity … he could show out.”

Of course, it’s worth wondering aloud: if Jones and the Cowboys are so incredibly high on Flournoy, then why leave him inactive for four straight weeks and finally play him only because of an injury at WR2?

And cynically, it’s not like anyone would really put it past Jones to overexaggerate a young player’s potential just to peddle some excitement to the fanbase during a season that threatens to go off the rails. No, better to keep those stadium seats full for the next three months by hinting that this off-the-bench guy just might become the team’s next superstar phenom, Γ  la Tony Romo or Miles Austin.

You probably already have a No. 88 jersey; why not get you an 80 before everyone else?

To be sure, invoking the name of Bryant- the franchise’s all-time receiving touchdowns leader- certainly sets a high bar for the Southeast Missouri State product who has only played in the preseason (and marred his first of those with a costly drop.)

But Flournoy himself says he’s learned a lot since then and is ready to take a big step in his pro career.

“I’m super confident,” he told reporters earlier in the week.

“I’m thankful and thank God that I’m able to show what I’ve got, just to prove to the world that I belong.”

But the absurdly-athletic Flournoy has his sights set even higher than that, modeling his game– and even his jersey number- after his hero, the greatest small-school wide receiver of them all.

“Speaking on Jerry Rice, I’m 80. He was No. 80,” Flournoy smiled. “That’s big shoes to fill. But Jerry Rice was so dominant as a player and as, like, a Hall of Famer, man. I want to do that.

“Being the next Jerry Rice, or being the only Ryan Flournoy, is my goal.”

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Flournoy had an impressive training camp. But neither the lofty comparisons nor aspirations guarantee that Flournoy will now go off when he finally takes the field Sunday night in Pittsburgh.

In his NFL debut, Jerry Rice caught four balls for 67 yards. Dez Bryant hauled in eight passes for 56.

But it has to start somewhere; Jones said he’s “anxious to see him make his first catch with the Dallas Cowboys.”

Flournoy, too.

“I am excited to show y’all. It’s in here,” he said, tapping his chest. “It’s in here. Y’all will see.”

Jones wants to make sure of it.

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‘One block away’: Cowboys vow to stick with current rushing attack despite lack of results

From @ToddBrock24f7: Hunter Luepke, Deuce Vaughn, and Tyler Guyton discuss the team’s approach to getting the Cowboys’ run game on track after a terrible start.

The Cowboys’ run game has done next to nothing this season. But to fix it, the team believes it needs to just continue with exactly what they’ve been doing.

Through four games, Dallas has a league-low 301 rushing yards, and a bottom-three mark of 3.5 yards per carry. The team’s leading rusher, Rico Dowdle, is averaging under 34 yards a game. No ground play all year has gone for more than 12 yards.

But don’t expect the team to drastically revamp its approach heading into Sunday’s visit to Pittsburgh, where a top-three run defense awaits.

“We’re one block away here, one block away there,” fullback Hunter Luepke said this week. “It’s just 11 guys working together. We’re close. We’re close. It’s going to break through one of these games.”

Deuce Vaughn agrees, saying the team needs to “keep chopping wood.”

“Coming in here and just working our butts off,” he continued. “Understand that one’s going to pop, and once it does and we start clicking … we’re going to get that confidence inside our room, inside the O-line room, and we’re going to run from there, no problem.”

This week will present a significant problem, though, and he wears No. 90 for the Steelers. Linebacker T.J. Watt is one of the most feared defenders in the game whether he’s trying to stop the run or the pass, and the Cowboys offensive line will have its hands full trying to frustrate him.

But it’s not a one-man show in Pittsburgh. Only two squads have allowed fewer rushing yards in 2024 than the Steelers. And they’re second-best leaguewide in yards-per-carry given up.

In other words, don’t expect a repeat of the 2016 classic in which Ezekiel Elliott piled up 114 ground yards in the Steel City, averaged 5.4 yards per tote, and ran in two touchdowns, including a 32-yard scamper in the final seconds to win the game.

This Sunday will present a tall challenge for the Dallas O-line. Like the committee of running backs they block for, the Cowboys front five maintains that sticking to their fundamentals will be the key.

“Just playing nasty,” offered rookie Tyler Guyton, “and hitting our landmarks the correct way.”

Cutting down on penalties will also help. The Cowboys are among the most-flagged teams in the NFL this season, and offensive holding is by far the biggest bugaboo (11 infractions against). Guyton himself accounts for five of those calls, leading the team.

He knows it has cost the team at inopportune moments, but he knows there’s still plenty of time to reverse course and get back on track.

“We’re four games in. I think we’re still building every single day, every play. I think we’re building toward something,” he told reporters. “I don’t think we’re at our best yet. We’re not, because I feel like I need to do better. And if I’m not at my best, then we’re not at our best. I think we all have improvements to make.”

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So the Cowboys look to keep pounding away with what they’ve been doing on the ground. A healthy mix of Dowdle and Elliott. A few change-of-pace carries for Vaughn. Keeping Dalvin Cook under wraps on the practice squad. Maybe an occasional jet sweep-type backfield play for CeeDee Lamb or KaVontae Turpin. Even deploying backfield options like Luepke into the passing game. (He has twice as many receptions this season as Jalen Brooks.)

Whatever it takes for the team to succeed. Even if it’s not pretty. Even if the conventional rushing attack is stuck in neutral.

These Cowboys will keep at it.

“It’s all about the team winning on Sunday, so it doesn’t matter how many catches I have or whatever,” Luepke said. “If we don’t get it done, it doesn’t mean anything. A win’s more important than anything, in my opinion.”

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‘Figured myself invincible’: Micah Parsons coming to grips with likelihood of sitting out Week 5

From @ToddBrock24f7: Parsons may miss his first game ever due to injury, although he’s trying to return as quickly as possible. It doesn’t look good for Sunday.

Heading into the Cowboys’ Week 4 game in New York, linebacker Micah Parsons was trying to avoid the first three-game losing streak in his football life.

Now he’s staring down a prospective barrel that upsets him even more.

The superstar defender, wearing a protective boot and using a scooter around The Star on Monday, seems hard-pressed to play this Sunday when the Cowboys visit Pittsburgh. If he has to sit due to the high-ankle sprain he suffered late in last Thursday’s win over the Giants, it will- incredibly- be the first game Parsons has ever missed, at any level, because of injury.

Parsons isn’t yet ready to concede.

“When you’re a real competitor, you only get 17 chances at this,” Parsons said, per Todd Archer of ESPN. “And missing one of these opportunities to perform at the highest level bothers me. I feel like I want to play on Sunday. If I can play, I will play, you know. To me, as long as I can run and move how I move, I want to play.”

Parsons is officially considered week-to-week, but the more realistic outlook points to him having to sit for at least one or even two games, considering Dallas has a bye after that.

“It’s just frustrating, for real,” he said, as reported by the team website. “You put a lot of energy into getting ready and being there for the team, so being out, this hurts me because I’m letting people down. I’m just letting people down. I figured myself invincible for a while.”

But the two-time All-Pro isn’t in total denial about his current prognosis. And he’s well aware that rushing back before his body is ready could mean a re-injury… and an even longer absence.

“It’s just going to come down to how I’m attacking this and getting right with Jim [Maurer, head trainer], and getting ahead of this, so that way I can get back as fast as possible. I’m just trying to get back as fast as possible, but I don’t want it to linger.”

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The 25-year-old was held out of a game during his rookie season due to COVID protocol, but he says being sidelined with an actual injury is a new experience.

“Never,” said the three-time Pro Bowler. “Never in my whole life. I’ve never missed a game. I’ve played hurt and through pain, so, to me, playing through hurt isn’t really the problem.”

But that does seem to be the way things are looking, and not just to Parsons.

“He’ll be challenged to play this week. We’re preparing to play without him,” head coach Mike McCarthy said of Parsons to media members Monday.

“It’s definitely the unfortunate part of our game… It takes a lot of players to win in this league. Creates a great opportunity for others; that’s definitely our approach.”

So while Parsons may not lead his defensive teammates onto the field in Pittsburgh, he’s already started leading them in the week’s preparation.

“It’s time to man up,” said Parsons. “We talk about next-man-up mentality? It’s time.”

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