The Eagles played sixth-round pick Kyle McCord for all of Friday night’s game against the Jets and they may need him to back up Jalen Hurts in the season opener as well.
Tanner McKee is set for the No. 2 job, but he suffered a finger injury in practice this week. After Friday night’s game, Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni said that the team doesn’t know if he’ll be available against the Cowboys on September 4.
“We’ll see,” Sirianni said, via Jeff Neiburg of the Philadelphia Inquirer. “He’s working to get back, and we’ll see where he is.”
McCord was 15-of-35 for 136 yards and an interception, but Sirianni said that the team feels comfortable with the quarterback situation heading into Week 1. That doesn’t mean the team will ignore any options that become available as they wait for further word on McKee’s availability.
Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer said on Friday that he believes defensive end Micah Parsons will be on the field against the Eagles in Week 1, but cornerback Trevon Diggs is less sure about his own outlook.
Diggs remains on the physically unable to perform list because of his recovery from surgery on his left knee and would miss at least the first four games of the season if he remains on it through the cut to 53 players. Diggs said he feels “way better than I should feel” and indications have been that he’d be ready to go before Week 5, but Diggs was non-committal about the Eagles game.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Diggs said, via Todd Archer of ESPN.com.
Diggs is not able to practice while on the PUP list and the chance to test the knee in that setting is also a factor in any decision about his status.
“I want to practice a lot,” Diggs said. “I want to get as much practice as possible, get the game reps in, get the live reps in. I haven’t practiced in a while, so I feel the practice will tell a lot more where I am.”
DaRon Bland and Kaiir Elam have been the top corners on the outside in Diggs’s absence and other injuries at corner have led to speculation that the Cowboys might look for help at the position in the coming days.
A whole generation of football fans grew up knowing that Tom Dempsey’s 63-yard field goal in 1970 was not just the NFL record, but one of the most extraordinary feats in NFL history. But in the modern NFL, 63-yard field goals are so ordinary that one happened in a preseason game on Friday — and it wasn’t even the longest field goal of the day.
Titans kicker Joey Slye made a 63-yard field goal on Friday but was topped by Cowboys kicker Brandon Aubrey, who made one from 64. Neither was even close to the longest field goal of this preseason; that distinction belongs to Jaguars kicker Cam Little, who booted one from 70 yards.
NFL kickers are so good now that the very concept of the term “field goal range” has changed. It wasn’t long ago that until the ball got inside the 35-yard line, coaches wouldn’t even think about sending their field goal team onto the field. In the not-too-distant past, coaches would rather try a coffin-corner punt on fourth down than a field goal of 53 yards or longer. Now a kicker who can’t consistently make 53-yard field goals won’t have a job in the NFL for long.
The official NFL record for the longest field goal currently belongs to Justin Tucker at 66 yards, but that record won’t last for decades the way Dempsey’s record did. In fact, there’s a good chance that it will be broken this year. Little showed that NFL kickers can make field goals from 70 yards in game conditions, and on Friday night both Slye and Aubrey made their kicks with enough room to spare that both of them would have been good from at least 67 yards. (Slye also hit a 53-yarder in the same game that bounced off the top of the upright and through, and in the NFL the uprights extend 35 feet above the crossbar, so that kick had the distance to set a record as well.)
The field goal record is sure to be broken soon. The only question is which coach will give his kicker that opportunity, as the NFL is now full of kickers who have redefined field goal range.
Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons is not happy with his team or his lack of a new contract, and he didn’t wear his jersey while every other Cowboy did during Friday night’s preseason game. But one thing he says he would never do is treat his teammates with disrespect.
Parsons was pictured lying down on the training table on the sideline, appearing uninterested in the game, but on social media he amplified reporter Mike Leslie of WFAA pointing out that he was only on the training table for a short time.
“I actually appreciate this,” Parsons wrote. “The way media shapes perception and narratives is wild—and if he hadn’t said anything, everyone would’ve just run with it. I’d never disrespect the guys out there fighting for their lives.”
Although the preseason doesn’t matter to star players, it’s still of vital importance to the players competing for roster spots, and it would be a bad look for a star like Parsons to disregard those players. Parsons is making clear that his feelings about the Cowboys and their refusal to pay him what he wants do not extend to the teammates still working to make the team.
The Micah Parsons contract situation has hit full boil over the past couple of days, culminating in owner and G.M. Jerry Jones sounding off to Michael Irvin — and in Parsons spending time during Friday night’s preseason game on a table.
After the game, coach Brian Schottenheimer was asked about Parsons’s decision to kick back and ignore the game. Via Tommy Yarish of the team’s official website, Schottenheimer said he didn’t notice it — but that he’ll look into it.
“We’ll look at the film and we’ll talk to everybody involved and we’ll have a great assessment of how we did both on and off the field,” Schotteneheimer said.
The first-year coach added that he still believes Parsons will play in the first game of the regular season, in 12 days at Philadelphia. Schottenheimer may be in a shrinking minority of people who think Parsons will play, unless a new deal is signed before then.
