Tag: Trevon Diggs

This Cowboys defender just reminded fans how special he can be despite Dallas’ downward spiral

Trevon Diggs brings a special quality to the Cowboys defense that can’t be ignored, says @ReidDHanson

Trevon Diggs, much like the Cowboys as a whole, hasn’t had the best season in 2024. The fifth-year pro has struggled making an impact in the secondary this season and frustration has been visible. The ballhawk who once posted 11 interceptions in a single season only logged a single pick through the first eight weeks of the current campaign.

With fellow All-Pro CB DaRon Bland sidelined with injury all year, it’s been a revolving door at the position opposite Diggs. This Flavor of the Week situation at the other CB spot has been a popular target for opposing quarterbacks looking for easy gains. Combined with the Cowboys poor run defense, it’s created an environment in which Diggs is rarely targeted in coverage. His 4.6 target rate (through Week 10) has been well below career averages and has often rendered Diggs more of a run supporter than coverage specialist.

Like most CBs, Diggs isn’t thrilled to stick his face in the ceiling fan as a run supporter. He’s proven capable but doesn’t always look willing or overly engaged. It’s led to his worst season as a run supporter and the highest missed tackle percentage of his career (20.5%).

But on Sunday in Week 10 against the Eagles, Diggs showed everyone exactly what he brings to the table and why the Cowboys inked him to a five-year, $97 million extension last summer.

Diggs’ diving interception in the end zone might have been the play of the game Sunday if the outcome hadn’t had been so lopsided in the end. With the game in the balance and the Eagles charging downfield to build on their four-point lead, Diggs extended all 6-foot-2 of himself to thieve a Hurts pass intended for Dallas Goedert.

It was a play only a handful of CBs can do in the NFL and a reminder of how special Diggs is for the Cowboys. Diggs might not be the type of player a team builds their defense around, but he is one that can put a defense over the top.

By avoiding him in coverage and targeting him with the running game, opponents can effectively eliminate Diggs from the equation on defense. Such is the nature of the position.

In many ways Diggs’ “down season” is nothing more than a byproduct of the circumstances. If the Cowboys weren’t begging teams to run on them, more passes would be directed downfield. If Dallas had more competent CB play to pair with Diggs on the boundary, QBs would be less likely to focus all their efforts opposite Diggs.

For as disappointing as the season has been for Diggs, he remains a special building block of this defense. It’s the Cowboys fault for not fielding a competent roster around him.

Digg’s tremendous interception reminded everyone how special the 26-year-old ball hawk is. Dallas just needs to fix things around him.

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Is Trevon Diggs playing today? Injury news update for Cowboys CB

Here’s the latest status for the Cowboys’ Trevon Diggs for Week 9 vs the Atlanta Falcons. | From @KDDrummondNFL

Update: Trevon Diggs will in fact play on Sunday, he was not one of the inactives.

Trevon Diggs has had a trying week. Following last week’s frustrating loss to the San Francisco 49ers, the All-Pro cornerback came out the locker room to confront a media member of a tweet made during the contest. It was a bad look that eventually Diggs made amends for, but that wasn’t the end of Diggs’ time as the center of attention.

Diggs also added himself to a ridiculously long list of injured Cowboys when he missed practice on Wednesday with what ended up being identified as a calf tear. Then Diggs missed Thursday, and then Friday.  Duggs was given the game designation of questionable for Dallas’ Week 9 roadtrip to take on the Atlanta Falcons.

The Cowboys are now sitting under ,500, at 3-4 on the 2024 season, losers of two games in a row. The team came out of their bye week flat, and needed a fell-short fourth-quarter rally to make their game against the 49ers a respectable effort.

Now, that same group is traveling to Atlanta in to take on the Falcons and Kirk Cousins. Already missing all of their top edge rushers, the Cowboys have played all season without Diggs’ counterpart DaRon Bland and the last several weeks without his backup rookie Caelen Carson. With Bland out, stopping Cousins and the Falcons aerial attack without Diggs is probably too big of an ask.

Expecting a player who missed all three practices to play at all, much less at a high level, is asking for a lot.

Week 9 inactives will be announced approximately an hour and a half before kickoff.

Cowboys: CB Trevon Diggs has calf muscle tear; will be gametime decision vs Atlanta

From @ToddBrock24f7: Diggs sat out practice this week with what he first thought was calf tightness. Jerry Jones isn’t ready to rule him out for Sunday’s game.

With a road trip to Atlanta on the schedule for this weekend, the Cowboys shouldn’t expect much in the way of Southern hospitality from Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins.

His loaded offense currently ranks in the top 10 leaguewide in points scored, total yards, yards-per-play, first downs, and passing yards. With DeMarcus Lawrence, Micah Parsons, and DaRon Bland all set to sit out once again, this is not the week for the Dallas defense to have any more of its superstar players pop up on the questionable list.

But that’s exactly where top cornerback Trevon Diggs is, with word coming from the top of the organization about the new injury that kept him out of practice earlier in the week and jeopardizes his status for Week 9.

Diggs made news after the team’s loss to the 49ers by getting into a heated exchange with WFAA reporter Mike Leslie outside the visitors locker room. While the two did publicly make up, it put extra eyes on the two-time Pro Bowler this week. Those eyebrows were then raised when Diggs later appeared on the practice report as a non-participant Wednesday and Thursday with some sort of calf issue.

“What none of us knew when that was going on was that he had a tear in his calf, and [it] was going to maybe limit him,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Friday on 105.3 The Fan.

Diggs had told the media that he believed he was dealing merely with tightness in the muscle, stemming from “one of the plays I got hit or something” in Santa Clara last Sunday night.

Jones wasn’t ready to say Diggs will join his other high-profile rehabbing teammates as an onlooker at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

“I’m not so sure he’s out [for Sunday], but… that’s why he wasn’t at practice the other day.”

Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy offered some optimism for Diggs’s status, calling him a gametime decision.

“There’s specific drills we’ll need him to do tomorrow,” the coach said Friday per ESPN’s Todd Archer, “but he was much better today than we could have anticipated. He’s doing everything he can to try to get ready for Sunday.”

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On the bright side for Dallas, it looks as if rookie cornerback Caelen Carson will return to action. He practiced in full all week and carries no official designation for the Atlanta tilt after a shoulder injury that kept him shelved for four games.

Amani Oruwariye was moved to IR earlier in the week with a back injury, leaving nickel starter Jourdan Lewis, special-teams ace C.J. Goodwin, the much-maligned Andrew Booth, and practice-squadder Josh Butler as the only other cornerbacks in the building.

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Micah Parsons, Trevon Diggs rank top NFL QBs, include Jayden Daniels, but not Dak Prescott

We’ve come a long way from eating turkey legs during the game.

Washington Commanders rookie quarterback has already put the NFL on notice. Daniels has been phenomenal through his first eight NFL games, leading Washington to a 6-2 record.

Everyone around the league, from players to coaches and media, acknowledges that Daniels is already one of the NFL’s top quarterbacks.

You can even include two rivals who haven’t even faced Daniels yet.

On a recent episode of “The Edge” with Micah Parsons, the Dallas Cowboys star was joined by cornerback Trevon Diggs. They discussed the NFL’s top passers. Both agreed that Daniels is already a top-10 quarterback.

But Diggs went a step further.

“Among the quarterbacks right now, I would definitely say he’s top 10,” Parson said of Daniels.

“Higher,” Diggs responded.

“You think he’s top five?” Parsons asked Diggs.

“For sure, who else you going to put in there?” Diggs responded.

This led Diggs to name his top five:

“I’m gonna go him (Daniels), (Patrick) Mahomes, Lamar (Jackson), Josh Allen, Jalen (Hurts) playing pretty good right now, too.”

Parsons then named other quarterbacks who belong high on the list: Jared Goff is a top-five quarterback right now,” he said.

The two teammates also named Matthew Stafford and Sam Darnold.

Did you notice who they didn’t name? Teammate Dak Prescott.

Prescott isn’t playing well after signing a huge new contract, but we could also make the case for players like Joe Burrow and Kirk Cousins. However, you would think at least one of the two Dallas players would name Prescott, currently the NFL’s highest-paid quarterback.

Here’s the full episode:

Remember when Prescott and his teammates were eating turkey legs on the sideline during last Thanksgiving’s blowout win over the Commanders? Now, these franchises are heading in completely different directions, with Washington atop the NFC East and Dallas just ahead of the last-place Giants.

Cowboys CB shuffle: DaRon Bland activated, Trevon Diggs sits out practice, backup goes to IR

From @ToddBrock24f7: Bland is no lock to play this Sunday; the team had to activate him today or end his season. Amani Oruwariye moves to IR with a back injury.

DaRon Bland is back on the Cowboys’ active roster, a signal that the third-year cornerback is growing tantalizingly close to making his 2024 regular-season debut.

Just in time, too. The team also placed fellow corner Amani Ouwariye on injured reserve after a back injury sustained last Sunday night against the San Francisco 49ers.

Bland has been out since suffering a stress fracture of the foot during training camp and started the season on IR. The former fifth-round draft pick and defending league leader in interceptions had surgery just prior to the team’s Week 1 season opener in Cleveland; he was given a six-to-eight-week recovery estimate at the time.

Even though it was now been nine weeks, Bland is still no lock to play Sunday when the Cowboys travel to Atlanta to face the Falcons.

His 21-day practice window was opened on Oct. 9, meaning the team had until the end of business to move him to either the active roster or season-ending injured reserve.

Bland was slated to spend the day’s practice working with the rehab group, according to head coach Mike McCarthy.

“We’re not going to put him out there until he’s ready to go,” McCarthy told reporters during his Wednesday press conference.

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The Cowboys will need someone ready to go at cornerback in very short order, though. Veteran Trevon Diggs did not practice Wednesday with what is being classified as a calf issue, and thanks to a shoulder injury, rookie Caelen Carson hasn’t played since Week 3’s loss to Baltimore.

And now Oruwariye has been shelved as well.

The onetime Detroit Lion and Jacksonville Jaguar, signed to the Cowboys just days after Bland’s foot procedure, made his first appearance for Dallas in Week 4 and logged an interception for the club in that Thursday night’s 20-15 win.

The 28-year-old Penn State product played almost every defensive snap over the Cowboys’ next two games against Detroit and Pittsburgh. Late in the third quarter of Sunday’s contest, he appeared to take a knee in the back during a block from 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk.

Oruwariye will have to miss at least four games before he may return to action. He will be lost until Thanksgiving, at the earliest.

The Cowboys currently have just four interceptions on the year. This week, they’ll go up against a Falcons offense that ranks third in the NFL in passing yards.

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Brotherly battle between Cowboys’ Trevon Diggs, Texans’ Stefon postponed again by injury

From @ToddBrock24f7: Last year, Trevon’s ACL injury scrapped a scheduled head-to-head between the two. This time it’s Stefon’s ACL tear, suffered last Sunday.

The highly-anticipated professional battle between the NFL’s Diggs brothers will have to wait… again.

Cowboys cornerback Trevon Diggs was set to square off against Houston wide receiver and older brother Stefon when the Cowboys hosted the Texans in Arlington in Week 11. The siblings’ first head-to-head showdown was supposed to take place last season, when the Cowboys visited Buffalo in December, but a knee injury suffered by Trevon shelved him early in the season.

Stefon’s move to Houston for 2024 had put a new Diggs-vs.-Diggs matchup in the spotlight, in a game that already carries an extra bit of juice as the two Lone Star State teams vie for the Governor’s Cup and bragging rights within the state.

Just like last year, a torn ACL has scrapped the brother-on-brother grudge match. But this time, it’s Stefon’s.

The Texans wideout, 30, suffered the injury last Sunday in the team’s 23-20 win over Indianapolis.

The Diggs brothers have always been close, often training together and competing against one another at events like the Pro Bowl skills challenge. Trevon even lobbied for Dallas to go acquire Stefon when the Bills wide receiver was unhappy with the Buffalo organization in a contract dispute.

Stefon wore a special message on his eye black after his younger brother’s injury last September; it would not be a surprise for Trevon to return the favor somehow when the Cowboys next take the field in Atlanta.

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Trevon, 26, would likely be all too happy to take the spotlight off himself after getting into a heated exchange with a Dallas reporter over a tweet following Sunday night’s Cowboys loss in San Francisco. Diggs later went on teammate Micah Parsons’s podcast and explained his emotional reaction while justifying his play; Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy said in a press conference that he would expect his players to “be better” when facing outside criticism.

Trevon, a two-time Pro Bowler and 2021’s league interceptions leader, signed a five-year contract extension with the Cowboys last summer. Stefon, a four-time Pro Bowler and the NFL’s receptions and receiving yards leader in 2020, is on a one-year deal in Houston and could be on the hunt for a new team following this season.

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Cowboys stars Micah Parsons, Trevon Diggs praise Dan Quinn

Micah Parsons and Trevon Diggs still love Dan Quinn.

The ending of the Commanders’ 18-15 win over the Chicago Bears Sunday was the talk of the NFL. Every sports radio show and television show discussed the game, specifically, the play all day on Monday.

It was also a popular topic among other NFL players. In his latest edition of “The Edge,” Cowboys star linebacker Micah Parsons discussed the play with teammate Trevon Diggs. Both players spent the previous three seasons playing for current Washington head coach Dan Quinn, who was the Dallas defensive coordinator.

Parsons has never been shy about sharing his love for Quinn and the impact he’s made on his career.

After Parsons praised Commanders rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels, Diggs turned the focus to Quinn.

“It’ll be about confidence, bro,” Diggs said. “Your coach putting that confidence in you, and he putting that battery in your back, you gonna go, every single time. You gotta have that coach that stands by you.”

Parsons then chimed in:

“And that’s who Dan represents,” Parsons said. “People don’t realize how high morale he had the team. The spirit he gave the defense. The energy, what he kinda gave all the players. Shark week, fight night, showing us boxing clips of MFers getting knocked out.”

Then Diggs says, “He had me ready to run through a wall; he’s just a genuine person.”

More from Parsons: “I see it from that Commanders team now.”

“Yeah, for sure,” Diggs said. “They don’t got like superstars, you know. But they play as a team. They play hard for one another. They look good.”

Quinn was criticized for the Cowboys’ playoff loss to the Packers in January. The defense was terrible. So was Dak Prescott, Mike McCarthy and the rest of the organization. It’s easy to forget that in his three years with Dallas, he was arguably the NFL’s top defensive coordinator.

Two of his former stars clearly still like and respect Quinn.

Trevon Diggs responds to firestorm over confronting Cowboys media member

Cowboys defender Trevon Diggs defended his actions while allowing there was an emotional factor to his response. | From @KDDrummondNFL

It wasn’t long after the end of the Cowboys’ 30-24 loss to the San Francisco 49ers; their fourth straight defeat at the hands of Kyle Shanahan, for the attention to change. That’s because following the game, CB Trevon Diggs was caught on camera, in uniform, confronting a member of the Dallas media. The TV sports anchor had posted a tweet during the game, questioning Diggs performance on a big play, and word had gotten back to Diggs.

In his regular one-on-one with teammate Micah Parsons on the latter’s Bleacher Report podcast, Diggs admits that he allowed emotions to get the better of him. However he is standing on business that what the media member was insinuating was incorrect.

It was.

Diggs was being called out for not wanting to tackle, but in reality it was one of his best career performances when it came to tackling. It’s no secret he has a reputation for not wanting to get involved in scrums, but that wasn’t the case this game. In fact, Diggs being in man coverage absolved him of the ire that had been put on him, and the way he pursued the play seemed to be in concert with what a secondary defender should do with a teammate in front of him.

He played at an angle to be the last line of defense while maintaining position to present an obstacle should TE George Kittle had cut back inside.

Of course with things going really bad in Dallas, none of that matters to a large part of the fanbase. When a media member draws attention to a player on a negative play, preconceived notions immediately win over. Most observers, including many media, don’t know the intricacies of how a player is supposed to respond on any given play.

But again, that ends up being irrelevant to the perception of how things transpired.

Cowboys CB Trevon Diggs goes after reporter outside locker room following criticism in loss

From @ToddBrock24f7: The Cowboys CB stormed out of the locker room in full pads to confront WFAA’s Mike Leslie after a social media post criticizing his effort.

The 2024 season is turning ugly in a hurry for the Dallas Cowboys. The first eight weeks of action have already featured a rash of injuries to high-profile players, a total breakdown of the once-vaunted rushing attack, a disastrous showing for the defense under a prodigal son coordinator, open questions in the locker room about effort, the contract-year head coach getting snippy with the media in a press conference, the owner threatening the jobs of radio talk-show hosts during a live interview, and fan tours- of all things- becoming a major talking point during the bye week.

Now this.

Cornerback Trevon Diggs went after a reporter Sunday night outside the visitors locker room, just moments after the Cowboys’ 30-24 loss to San Francisco went final.

At issue was a post on X criticizing the two-time Pro Bowler’s seeming lack of effort during a third-quarter play.

On 49ers tight end George Kittle’s 43-yard catch-and-run in the opening minutes of the second half, replays show Diggs covering wide receiver Chris Conley at the moment of Kittle’s reception at the Dallas 40. Diggs’s back is turned as he follows Conley through his route for another few seconds. By the time Diggs turns his head to realize that Kittle has the ball, he is five yards further downfield from Kittle.

Diggs maintains his stride and pursuit angle, appearing to leave teammates Donovan Wilson, Eric Kendricks, and Malik Hooker – all much closer to Kittle than Diggs- to make the play.

Except they don’t. Wilson falls after barely clutching at the back of Kittle’s jersey, and Kendricks never catches up. Hooker and Diggs finally converge on Kittle as he nears the pylon, with Diggs making a last-gasp push to force him out of bounds shy of the goal line.

The 49ers would score on the next snap to re-take the lead which they never gave back. San Francisco scored 21 unanswered points in a third-quarter onslaught that demoralized the Cowboys on both offense and defense. While Dallas fought back to make the final tally close, the loss dropped their mark to 3-4 and provided very little in the way of hope for a dramatic turnaround, with four straight opponents with winning records coming down the pike.

For some, though, that one play- along Diggs’s perceived lack of urgency and avoidance of tackling- summed up what’s wrong with the Cowboys in this frustrating season.

Mike Leslie of Dallas ABC affiliate WFAA reposted video of the moment afterward, adding, “What is Trevon Diggs doing on this play?”

Diggs apparently saw the post, and very soon after hitting the locker room. Still in full pads, the former second-round draft pick stormed back out to the media gaggle at Levi’s Stadium and got in Leslie’s face about it.

“Out of that whole play, that’s what you took from that?” Diggs demands, in a clip from NBC DFW’s Newy Scruggs. “You don’t know football. You can’t do nothing that I do. You can’t go out there and do nothing. Stay in your lane, buddy. Stop playing with me, bro.”

The confrontation continued, even after Diggs turned to go back into the locker room.

“Just asking the question, Trevon,” Leslie replied. “I mean, I’m happy to have you answer the question.”

Diggs came back and re-engaged with more of the same.

“Out of that whole play, that’s what you took from that?” he barked. “That’s what you got from that? That whole play, that’s what you got from that?”

With that, Diggs fired off a few expletives and retreated to the locker room, while Leslie attempted to get clarification.

“We can talk about it more,” the reporter offered. “What were you doing then?”

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Since his rookie season of 2020, Diggs has gained a reputation as a dice-rolling defensive back who often makes the breathtaking interception, but also frequently gives up a monster play when the risk doesn’t pay off. He’s also been tabbed- perhaps unfairly- as a defender who is unwilling to tackle. In truth, Diggs has the third-most solo tackles on the entire Cowboys roster through seven games.

It’s easy to debate- after the fact- that Diggs could have taken a different pursuit angle of Kittle or that he didn’t seem to have a lot of urgency in helping to make the play. The same could be said of several Cowboys players on several occasions Sunday night.

That one play, though, didn’t cost Dallas the chance to win a game in which very few people thought they would come out on top. A six-point loss, halfway through the season, on the road, to the defending NFC champs, in the grand scheme of things, isn’t even the sort of thing that spells certain doom.

But a star player apparently searching his own name on Twitter after a hard-fought game and before he’s even out of his pads to see what people have said about him… and then marching out into the tunnel fully-dressed to angrily confront and belittle a local reporter about some online criticism?

That just might end up being the moment that really decided for sure that this 2024 Cowboys team is an unsalvageable wreck.

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Where are Cowboys leaders that will save the 2024 season? Do they exist?

The Dallas Cowboys are at a crossroads. Sitting with a record of 3-3, the idea the season is already a lost cause shouldn’t be realistic. Yet based on the club’s performances in their three home games to date, there’s a ton of ingredients missing …

The Dallas Cowboys are at a crossroads. Sitting with a record of 3-3, the idea the season is already a lost cause shouldn’t be realistic. Yet based on the club’s performances in their three home games to date, there’s a ton of ingredients missing from a team that has the requisite star power to be championship contenders.

Despite never dipping into free agency in a realistic way, the Cowboys have assembled some of the best talent in the NFL. The roster might be top heavy, but that top is certainly on par with what other teams can boast. Dallas has a myriad of All-Pro and Pro Bowl players, all deserving of their accolades, yet they’re being blown out on a regular basis. Why? The question might come down to leadership.

Teams with lame duck coaches, like the Cowboys have in Mike McCarthy, are not destined for doom. The Cowboys themselves thrived under a lame-duck Jason Garrett in 2014, tying for the NFL’s best record that season. They also floundered the next time they entered the fray with a coach at the crossroads, in 2019 again with Garrett. And now with McCarthy and his entire staff on the final year’s of their deals, the situation has arisen yet again.

And thus far, it does not look like the team has the necessary leadership in the locker room to overcome their current difficulties.

NFL seasons are funny things. History is littered with both underachievers and overachievers, and the common denominator is often whether or not the team is putting in the work necessary to maximize the talents of all 70 players on the roster and practice squad. Is the work being done in between games enough to elicit top performances on Sundays?

So far the answer has been a resounding no when it comes to the 3-3 Cowboys.

There’s plenty of blame to go around.

It starts at the top of the organization, where Jerry Jones’ all-in decree early in the offseason certainly soured his roster, who were looking for their organization to show confidence by investing in filling weaknesses with proven NFL talent.

It continues to the coaching staff, who Jones gambled would go above and beyond in order to convince him they deserved to stay in what he considers the coup de grace of NFL franchises. Instead, they returned with lackluster offensive and defensive schemes and a failure to inspire top performances from the roster.

And it ends with said roster. A team watched the organization spend the entire summer allowing contract disputes with their top three stars, not give a vote of confidence to the coaching staff, and then internalized that lack of belief and are giving out some of their worst on-field performances in some time.

Dak Prescott’s completion percentage is six points lower than 2023 and has thrown for the lowest amount of TDs through six games since his rookie season. The passing offense is in disarray and the team hasn’t scored over 20 points in three weeks.

Zack Martin is a shell of himself after admitting to contemplating retirement last season, for the first time ever he’s not among the best linemen in the league and he’s unable to lead a young offensive line to any semblance of continuity.

Ezekiel Elliott was brought back to be a locker room leader despite diminshing rushing performances each of the last four years, but that doesn’t seem to have had any tangible impact.

CeeDee Lamb couldn’t lead the young wideouts over the offseason because Jones refused to pay him market value until mid-August, and he’s certainly not played the role of a leader with his in-season pouting, bad body language and inconsistent route-running.

On defense, Micah Parsons chose to make his contract a thing, sitting out the spring despite having two years left, and is suffering the worst of his four-year career seasons thus far.

Linebacker Eric Kendricks was brought in to teach Mike Zimmer’s defense and seems to have had a positive impact on the youth in that group, but as has been said many times on these pages, linebackers don’t matter unless the defensive line is a strength. The Cowboys interior DL is abhorrent.

In the secondary, Zimmer’s difficult-to-learn scheme has led to down years from virtually everyone, with veterans Trevon Diggs and Malik Hooker unable to inspire confidence as they struggle in their own rights.

It’s all led to a lackluster season where it’s difficult to even identify a top 30 ranking at this point.

Where are the leaders of this Dallas Cowboys’ season and will they step up and get things in order over the bye week?