NFL Injuries: Not A Good Week For Dallas Cowboys, Until Today

 

There hasn’t been much good injury news to come out of Valley Ranch this week as the Dallas Cowboys injury list continued to grow. First Kenyon Coleman was lost for the year; then Lawrence Vickers, Ryan Cook, DeMarco Murray, John Phillips and Mike Jenkins all sat out almost the entire week of practice.

It got so bad that Mackenzy Bernadeau was actually taking first team reps at center in practice, which would mean a pretty dramatic shift on the Dallas offensive line. My colleague at Rant Sports Jesus Flores and I both pointed out how that scenario is less than ideal.

Then we come to today where the Cowboys received some good news on the injury front; Kevin Kowalski has been activated from the PUP list and will likely be available for the Cowboys tomorrow. The news is a big sigh of relief if Cook can’t go (which is likely), and Bernadeau is forced into playing center. Actually, if Cook can’t play and if Kowalski is on the active 46 man game day roster, there is reason to believe that Kowalski could be playing center tomorrow.

There is no way to tell which way the Cowboys are leaning with Kowalski’s playing time but the good news is the Cowboys have a viable center option if Cook can’t play or if Bernadeau isn’t effective. I’m guessing Kowalski will be active and play center if Cook isn’t healthy enough to suit up.

To add Kowalski to the roster, the Cowboys had to put rookie safety Matt Johnson on season ending injured reserve. The Cowboys clearly had high hopes for Johnson, sticking with him through various injuries since mini-camps but he was never fully healthy.

Meanwhile another rookie, Danny Coale, was also hurt this week and it’s feared he has suffered a torn ACL in practice on Thursday.

The official injury report lists Murray, Cook and Jenkins as doubtful, while Vickers and Phillips as listed as probable. Dan Connor is also likely to return this week.

It took until Saturday but the Cowboys finally got some good news on the injury front, let’s hope it will stay this way.

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