Cowboys cornerback Trevon Diggs was placed on injured reserve over the weekend as he deals with both a concussion and a knee injury, which led to a question for team owner Jerry Jones on Tuesday about whether Diggs has played his final snap for the team.
Diggs missed most of 2024 with a knee injury and his decision to rehab that injury away from the team this offseason led to the Cowboys reducing his salary. He returned to play in Week 1 and appeared in the first six games of the season before suffering a concussion at home ahead of Week 7. He also picked up an injury to his other knee and the health issues as well as the lack of guaranteed money left on his contract have led to thoughts that he’s close to the end of his time in Dallas.
During an appearance on 103.5 The Fan, Jones said “I don’t see that today at all” when asked if Diggs has played his final game for the team and that the corner has “to get well and he hasn’t been.” He also took issue with former Cowboy Micah Parsons’ assertion that the Cowboys rushed him back to the field.
“Diggs’ biggest problem is he’s injured and it’s not the same knee he’s been doing his rehab with,” Jones said. “That’s his No. 1 challenge. Unfortunately, he’s got a handful of challenges here that are physically related. That’s why he’s got the status he’s got today.”
Diggs will miss at least three more games and the Cowboys’ season could be lost by the time he’s eligible to return if head coach Brian Schottenheimer’s planned changes don’t spark an immediate turnaround to the team’s defensive performances. That could impact any plans to bring him back, but Jones isn’t writing him off at this point.
Defensive problems have been a constant for the Cowboys this season and they were impossible to miss during the team’s loss to the Broncos on Sunday.
The Cowboys gave up 179 rushing yards and gave up points on seven of the Broncos’ nine possessions after an interception to open the game. The result was a 44-24 loss that dropped them to 3-4-1 on the season.
On Monday, head coach Brian Schottenheimer said that nothing stood out positively to him on either side of the ball while making it clear that the defensive issues were paramount. Schottenheimer called the effort “not acceptable” and that “making adjustments to scheme, changes to personnel” are all things the team is looking to do as they try for better performances in the future.
“There’s always reasons to change, and there will be change,” Schottenheimer said, via the team’s website. “I can promise you that. I can show you that. We’ve already had meetings, and we’ve talked about those changes. We’re in the mode right now of where we’ve got kind of a one-game season. . . . I just say that because we’ve got Arizona before the bye and, really, bigger changes to our style will happen over the bye week. That’s when we get a chance to say, ‘OK, now we’re looking back at nine games. What were those issues and did we get them corrected?’ No? Well, now we need to do this and we need to do that.”
If the Cowboys can’t beat the Cardinals, any changes they make ahead of their final eight games might not be significant enough to overcome the hole their defense has helped to dig in the first half of the season.
The animosity between the Cowboys and linebacker Micah Parson lingers, nearly two months to the day after Dallas traded him to Green Bay.
The latest flash point relates to Cowboys cornerback Trevon Diggs, who was placed on injured reserve over the weekend.
“Honestly, I feel like they fucked my dog over, you know what I mean?” Parsons told Jori Epstein of Yahoo Sports after Sunday night’s win over the Steelers. “He’s coming off a catastrophic knee injury and I just didn’t think they did right by him. He didn’t participate all camp and he’s going out there playing Week 1 and 2. I just don’t think you do that to a player like that. . . .
“And the type of knee injury he had, they forced him out there. He has no reps really. He’s telling me he was in warmup phase during Week 1. Even with the ramp-up, I just feel like you just don’t do that.”
Diggs suffered a concussion at home before the Week 7 win over the Commanders. He missed that game before landing on IR before Week 8.
“I just feel like they screwed him over,” Parsons said. “The organization let him down. You know what I mean? You just don’t do that to a player. And I just think it was mad wrong and I just pray for him.”
The Cowboys declined to respond to Parsons, via Epstein. Diggs’s contract is not guaranteed beyond 2025; he has a $14.5 million base salary in 2026.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is not happy that his team is 3-4-1 eight games into the season.
“I am not happy at all with winning three ball games. At all,” Jones said after Sunday’s loss in Denver. “Can we play better? Of course we can play better.”
Jones said he will consider making trades if they can bring in players who will help the Cowboys contend.
“If I saw a proposition for us to help this team, no matter what this score was today, then I would look at it on the merits of helping this team. And if you’re talking about trading for a player or trading a player, I would completely look at it on the merits of the team, both for next week or the weeks after or for the longer term,” Jones said. “Today would not affect a decision on trading for a player.”
Asked if he anticipates shopping any players before the trade deadline, Jones answered, “Not now, no.”
The Cowboys have plenty of ammunition to make a trade, given that they have their own draft picks and the Packers’ next two first-round picks from the Micah Parsons trade. General managers looking to trade a veteran player for future picks would be wise to give Jones a call.
The Broncos won their eighth consecutive game against the Cowboys, dating to a Dallas win in September 1995. Sunday’s game wasn’t close.
The Cowboys led 3-0, and after that, it was all Broncos.
The Broncos beat up the Cowboys 44-24, leading by as much as 27 as they built on what they did in the fourth quarter last week. Denver rallied last week with 33 points in the fourth quarter to stun the Giants.
Denver is 6-2, and Dallas is 3-4-1.
The Broncos did not need a comeback on Sunday, leading 27-10 at halftime and sending Dak Prescott to the bench after the quarterback threw an interception with 10:15 remaining in the fourth quarter. Jahdae Barron and Dondrea Tillman each had a pick of Prescott, who also took sacks from Zach Allen and John Franklin-Myers.
The Broncos outgained the Cowboys 426 to 339 with Dallas depleted in the secondary.
R.J. Harvey had 46 yards on seven carries, scoring on runs of 40 and 1, and he had a 5-yard touchdown catch on his only reception. J.K. Dobbins ran for 111 yards on 15 carries.
Bo Nix went 19-of-29 for 247 yards with four touchdowns and an interception, with Troy Franklin catching six passes for 82 yards and two touchdowns. Pat Bryant had two catches for 40 yards and a touchdown and Courtland Sutton had four catches for 67 yards.
Prescott was 19-of-31 for 188 yards and two interceptions, and Javonte Williams had 13 carries for 41 yards and two touchdowns against his former team. George Pickens caught seven passes for 78 yards and CeeDee Lamb seven for 74.
Joe Milton threw the Cowboys’ touchdown pass in mop-up duty, hitting Jalen Tolbert for a 35-yard score.
