The Cowboys downgraded cornerback Joey Porter Jr. to a limited participant in Thursday’s practice.
Porter, who has had an ankle injury since Week 6, was a full participant on Wednesday.
Porter played less than 50 percent of the defensive snaps in two of the three games he’s played since. He played 36 snaps in Week 6 against the Packers, 51 in Week 7 against the Eagles and 36 in Week 8 against the Cardinals.
The Cowboys added linebacker DeMarvion Overshown to the practice report with back and hamstring injuries. He was limited.
Defensive back Caleb Downs (concussion/ankle) and safety P.J. Locke III (concussion) returned to limited work after missing Wednesday.
Offensive tackle Broderick Jones (personal), outside linebacker Von Miller (rest) and linebacker Dee Winters (calf) were upgraded to full participants. Jones and Miller missed Wednesday’s session, and Winters was limited.
Tight end Jake Ferguson (ankle), outside linebacker Malachi Lawrence (ankle) and wide receiver KaVontae Turpin (ribs) did not practice a second consecutive day.
Wide receiver George Pickens (hamstring), tight end Luke Schoonmaker (groin) and left guard Tyler Smith (ankle) remained limited.
The Cowboys’ injury report has 16 names, with five players sitting out Wednesday’s practice with injuries.
Defensive back Caleb Downs did not practice with a concussion and an ankle injury. He left Sunday’s game with a head injury.
Downs, a first-round rookie, has played 509 defensive snaps — 92 percent — and 45 on special teams. He has totaled 52 tackles, a sack, a pass defensed and two forced fumbles.
Tight end Jake Ferguson (ankle), offensive tackle Broderick Jones (personal), outside linebacker Malachi Lawrence (ankle), safety P.J. Locke (concussion), outside linebacker Von Miller (rest) and wide receiver KaVontae Turpin (ribs) did not practice.
Wide receiver George Pickens (hamstring), tight end Luke Schoonmaker (groin), left guard Tyler Smith (ankle) and linebacker Dee Winters (calf) were limited.
Defensive tackle Jonathan Bullard (calf), defensive tackle Kenny Clark (back), outside linebacker Marist Liufau (forearm), cornerback Joey Porter Jr. (ankle) and offensive tackle Drew Shelton (hamstring) were full participants.
Appearing Tuesday on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, Cowboys owner and G.M. Jerry Jones made a clunky case for the absence of a correlation between coaching pay and wins.
When he makes his second weekly visit of the team’s flagship station, he should be asked this question: Would you want Andy Reid, Sean Payton, John Harbaugh, Sean McVay, or Kyle Shanahan to be the Cowboys’ head coach?
They’re the five highest-paid coaches in the league. And any team that doesn’t have an objectively great coach would absolutely want one of those five.
Because they win. In 2026, their combined record is 25-11-1. They have six Super Bowl trophies, and 11 Super Bowl appearances.
They’re highly compensated because they win. Which makes them worthy of high compensation.
It’s obvious. And it’s insulting to the intelligence of anyone with reasonable cognitive skills (which barely qualifies me to be insulted) for Jerry to insist that there’s “zero correlation” between coaching pay and wins.
So what’s really going on here? At one level, he’s being cheap when it comes to a budgetary line item that has no salary cap, or salary floor. At another level, he likely doesn’t want to have a true alpha whose W-2 would allow him to take over the team, and to minimize the outsized influence of anyone named Jones.
Whatever the case, Jones’s strategy to treat a coaching search like an exercise in wildcatting ignores the fact that he can afford to pay for a high-functioning oil well. But he doesn’t want to spend the money — and he doesn’t want to give the coach the power that comes from being highly paid.
Through it all, the Cowboys haven’t been to the NFC Championship since 1995. And there’s definitely a correlation between Jerry’s approach to hiring coaches and the continuation of “this ‘drought’ that people say we’re in.”
Jerry Jones has said that the size of the check he would write to guarantee another Super Bowl win would be “embarrassing.”
Yes, it would be embarrassingly small.
Jones, when it comes to the resources he is willing to invest in the team, is cheap. He won’t fire coaches who have buyouts. And he won’t pay top dollar for new coaches.
The owner and G.M. of the Cowboys defended his approach during his latest visit to 105.3 The Fan in Dallas by making the nonsensical claim that there’s no connection between coaching pay and winning.
“In the NFL, this is after years of looking at all the teams and all the coaches, there is no — there is zero correlation between how much you pay a coach, or how many coaches you have, as to winning,” Jones said. “There is no correlation. And that’s a random sample of years and all 32 teams involved. So put that in your hopper and smoke it.”
He’s just wrong. Hiring a proven coach, and paying him accordingly, can change everything. We’ve seen it, time and again.
Andy Reid instantly turned the Chiefs into consistent contenders, and three-time Super Bowl winners. Sean Payton has made the Broncos into an annual contender, positioning him to become the first coach to win a Super Bowl for two different teams. Most recently, John Harbaugh has immediately changed everything for the Giants.
Harbaugh’s success will result in his former rival, Mike Tomlin, fending off teams willing to pay him upwards of $30 million per year to swap out his earpiece and microphone on the NBC sideline set for the Sony headset along the white stripe.
Jones prefers to speculate, when it comes to coaches. In lieu of paying for a coach who has proven that he can win, Jones wants to roll the dice on an unproven commodity in the hopes of maximizing the return on his investment.
“You can be pretty creative in hiring your coaches,” Jones said. “You can be creative sometime when you don’t even know you’re hiring the coaches. And so I’ve had some good experience of hiring people who have never been in the NFL. I’ve had some experience of hiring young coaches, older coaches, and so, of course, you constantly remind me, as you should, of what my record is. And I understand that. But I also know that the next time you throw the pick, if you were the old California gold miner, you may hit the Comstock Lode. And then it is gloryhole.”
“Creative” is another way of saying “cheap.” Buy low, and reap the benefit when the less expensive option yields results. And stick with him until his contract expires, to avoid having to pay two coaches at the same time.
It would be different if there truly was no correlation between quality (and cost) of coach and winning. But there ABSOLUTELY is a connection.
Still, Jerry prefers to dig through the bargain bin in search of an abandoned Botticelli. His own twist on “if you have to ask you can’t afford it” is “if you have to ask I don’t want it.”
It’s no surprise. In the early days of the salary cap, members of the media often pointed out that there’s no cap on coaching pay. In time, the NFL realized, “Oh shit, there’s no cap on coaching pay.”
That has led to what some believe is an effort to collectively keep coaching pay from growing at the rate that it should. And some in league circles are convinced that Jerry Jones is the ringleader of what is, as a practical matter, an effort to collude.
Even if he’s not going to pay top-of-market money for a coach, the higher the market goes, the more expensive it gets across the board. The rising tide, in other words, raises all dinghies. And Jerry would much rather spend his money on his aircraft carrier that has been retrofitted into a luxury hotel.
That’s his prerogative. But Cowboys fans — who fork over their money and who devote their time and attention to watching games on TV and consuming Cowboys content — should understand what’s going on. Jerry Jones is pinching pennies when it comes to paying coaches. As a result, he’s often getting what he isn’t paying for.
His mindset is highly relevant to the looming wreckage of the 2026 season. If coach Brian Schottenheimer has guaranteed money left on his contract for 2027, he will not be fired. And if Jones can avoid owing Schottenheimer a buyout, Jones will resist joining the pursuit of Tomlin, who admitted on the most recent edition of Football Night in America that he grew up a fan of the Cowboys.
Actually, that could make Jerry think that deep-seated rooting interest will give him a chance at hiring Tomlin on the cheap. Because cheap does as cheap is. And, when it comes to his team (and specifically to his coaches), Jerry Jones is cheap.
The 3-5 Cowboys have plenty of problems. During the first of his two weekly radio spots on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, owner and G.M. Jerry Jones mentioned one specific thing that he’d like to see change.
Regarding receiver George Pickens, Jones said this, via Jon Machota of The Athletic: “He needs the ball coming his way more.”
Through eight games, Pickens has 62 targets. In Week 8 against the Cardinals, Pickens had the ball thrown in his direction only four times. Against the Eagles in Week 7, Pickens had six targets.
He has 39 catches for 533 yards and two touchdowns in 2026. That projects to 83 catches for 1,132 yards and 8.5 touchdowns.
In 2025, Pickens finished with 93 receptions, 1,429 yards, and nine scores.
Hovering over the situation is the decision the Cowboys will have to make after the season. He’s making $27.298 million under the franchise tag; they could tag him again next year, at $32.758 million. Which is still nearly $10 million behind the top of the receiver market.
There’s another option, now that the Cowboys are fading in the race for the NFC East title. They could make Pickens available in trade.
Would a contender offer a second-round pick for him? The Chiefs are currently desperate for help at receiver; they’re interested (we’re told) in Jaguars receiver Brian Thomas Jr. and Colts receiver Josh Downs. If the Chiefs are in on Pickens, other teams in the AFC (like the Bills) should be thinking about it, too.
If the Cowboys were to decide to make a move, they could stockpile a pick or two — and save $15.17 million in cash and cap space. For now, who knows? The Cowboys seem to be deluding themselves into thinking they’re still contenders.
Unless that’s just part of the annual effort to keep their fans coughing up cash for tickets and merch. Which continues to work very well, relative to the on-field production.
For 31 years, and counting.
