The Cowboys have another injury issue on their hands at wide receiver.
KaVontae Turpin was not on the field during the open portion of Wednesday’s practice and the team’s website reports that his status for Sunday’s game against the Jets is in doubt because of a foot injury. Turpin dealt with a neck injury earlier this season, but has not missed any games.
Turpin’s injury comes at a time when the Cowboys are also trying to get CeeDee Lamb back from the ankle injury that kept him out of their Week 4 tie with the Packers.
Turpin has 11 catches for 159 yards and a touchdown this season. He is also averaging 10 yards per punt return and 25.3 yards per kickoff return through the first four weeks of the year.
After Monday night’s loss to the Dolphins, Jets cornerback Sauce Gardner shared his frustrations with the officiating and said that he believes he and the team “get called for more stuff just based off us just not winning.”
Jets head coach Aaron Glenn got a chance to weigh in on those comments at a Tuesday press conference. The Jets were flagged 13 times for 101 yards in their 27-21 loss to Miami and Glenn acknowledged that there were calls that he took issue with while also saying that the bigger onus is on the Jets putting “ourselves in position to start getting those calls.”
Glenn said part of that process is to “stop asking why and start talking about how and start having solutions for some of those things.”
“There’s always calls that we look at that we want to bring to the league and get clarification on,” Glenn said, via a transcript from the team. “Why it wasn’t called, what are refs looking at? But here’s what I do know, man you have to earn the right to get a lot of these calls for the most part, and we just have to continue playing. There were a number of calls in that game that I felt didn’t go our way that I felt we should have gotten. I could easily go through those, but I’m not, but I do know this, we had a good amount of penalties on our end that we have to clean up, and again, we’re talking about a team that had two years of leading the league in penalties and we’re still trying to clean things up as we go. But I don’t want to put it all on that. I just want to talk about that in-house and make sure we do everything we can to clean those up.”
Glenn has also focused on turnovers as an area where the Jets have to improve. They’ve given the ball away seven times and are the only team without a takeaway through four games, so there’s a lot of places where the Jets need to stop shooting themselves in the foot if they want to start winning some games.
The Jets will be without one of their offensive contributors for a bit.
Per Ian Rapoport of NFL Media, running back Braelon Allen is set to miss time with the MCL sprain he suffered during Monday’s loss to the Dolphins.
While Allen is seeking additional opinions on the injury, he is likely to land on injured reserve.
In his second season, Allen has rushed for 76 yards with a touchdown and caught two passes for 17 yards so far this season. He nearly had another score early in Monday night’s game, but fumbled just before reaching the goal line.
The Jets will host the Cowboys in Week 5.
Monday night’s loss to the Dolphins dropped the Jets to 0-4 this season and it was the third time that their self-inflicted wounds loomed large in a one-score loss.
Head coach Aaron Glenn expressed his frustrations with the team’s 13 penalties and three turnovers in the locker room as well as at his press conference by saying the team has to learn how to not lose games before they can expect to win them. That theme was carried over in comments from players after the game as well.
Wide receiver Garrett Wilson called the errors “ridiculous” because “it’s been preached, it’s been talked about, it’s been emphasized” during the team’s preparations every week. Wilson went on to say that the team’s Week 5 home game against the Cowboys is the moment they have to show that they’re capable of doing something better.
“This past week was a ‘got to have it’ and the fact that we just played how we did, now this becomes an ‘absolutely got to have it,’” Wilson said, via a transcript from the team. “Got to have it. Got to get on the board. It’s a home game. Protect our home field and just at the end of the day, what do you want your legacy to be in this league? I look back on my time and man, we’ve got to go now. There’s no time, you know? We’ve got to have it this week and I’ll make sure to relay and they know that, but I’ll make sure to relay that to the team because I’m sure they all feel the same.”
The issues that have plagued the Jets so far this season are ones that they struggled with before Glenn’s arrival and completely eliminating them all at once has proven to be too big a task for the first-year head coach. Showing progress toward that goal would be reason to hope better days are ahead, however, and now would be a good time for that to happen.
Like them or not, Monday night doubleheaders seem to be here to stay.
The business calculation is simple. More total people will watch two games that are broadcast on a Monday than one on Monday and one that otherwise would have landed in the cluster of Sunday games.
Watching the games and enjoying the experience, however, are two different things.
For me, the first choice is one game, and one game only. Monday Night Football is, or should be, special. It should be unique. It started as one game. Good, bad, otherwise. One game, and people watch it or they don’t. More often than not, people watch it — even when the game isn’t a good one.
Having a pair of games that overlap will goose the size of the total audience for the time period when both games are being played. Which is good for business. But is the overall experience of watching two prime-time games at once good for fans?
Also, having two games increases the chances that at least one will be compelling and close. But what if, like last night, neither one is?
In the age of the multiscreen, it’s possible to watch both games at the same time. But possible and preferable are two different things. Is it enjoyable to focus on one game while potentially missing something significant from the other game? Is it feasible to constantly be making the assessment as to whether the eyes, and the audio, should center on one game or the other?
Fortunately, ESPN/ABC have gotten away from doing a split-screen live look-in of the other game. For many, the split-screen version of the other game was ahead of the screen displaying the other game.
Improvements remain possible. Why, for example have the score of the other game on the screen? Anyone who wants to know the score of the other game can either watch the game on a second screen, or they can just watch that game instead.
Despite the six-hour marathon and the ensuing sleep deprivation, it’s better to play the two games consecutively. The fact that 13.5 million, on average, tuned in for the pair of back-to-back Week 2 Monday night games could lead to more of those, especially if/when the numbers for last night’s partially simultaneously twin bill pale in comparison.
Regardless, there will be two more Monday night doubleheaders this season. In 13 days, Bills-Falcons will start at 7:15 p.m. ET, with Bears-Commanders kicking off an hour later. The next Monday, we’ll see another baton-passing pair of games, with Bucs-Lions in the 7 p.m. ET window and Texans-Seahawks beginning at 10 p.m. ET.
For those who don’t like Monday night doubleheaders, there’s a silver lining to the looming NFL-ESPN mega media merger. If/when the transaction receives all appropriate governmental approvals, ESPN will swap its four extra Monday night games back to NFL Network for the seven exclusive NFLN games (which include the early-morning European games).
Of course, this doesn’t preclude the four NFLN games from landing on Monday nights, too. If the powers-that-be like the numbers that come from two Monday night games, a way will be found to continue them.
Here’s the broader point. Audience size and audience enjoyment are, or at least should be, two different things. But only one of those adds directly to the bottom line. And that’s the factor that ultimately matters most.
