Former first-round pick Kaiir Elam needs a new place to play.
Elam’s stay with the Cowboys came to an end on Saturday when they waived the cornerback to make room on the roster for running back Malik Davis. Elam was acquired in a trade with the Bills this offseason.
Elam appeared in 10 games and made seven starts for the Cowboys. He had 29 tackles and one pass defensed during his time in Dallas.
Davis was signed off of the team’s practice squad. He has appeared in four games for the Cowboys, including the last three contests. He has seven carries for 26 yards on the season.
Eagles center Cam Jurgens is good to go for Sunday against the Cowboys.
Jurgens, who had been listed as questionable with a concussion, has now fully cleared the protocol. The Eagles announced today that Jurgens will play and has no injury designation.
The Eagles also announced that DeVonta Smith will play but will fly to Dallas separately from the team, for personal reasons that the team did not disclose.
Philadelphia’s offense suffered a blow when right tackle Lane Johnson suffered a foot injury last week, and Johnson will be out for at least a few weeks. But otherwise the Eagles feel good about their offense.
The Eagles are three-point favorites on the road against the Cowboys on Sunday.
The Eagles gave four players an injury designation for Sunday’s matchup against the Cowboys. All four are offensive linemen.
Right tackle Lane Johnson (foot) was ruled out, as expected. He will miss multiple weeks with a Lisfranc injury and could spend time on injured reserve, which would keep him out a minimum of four weeks.
The Eagles are 120-62-1 in games he has played and 15-24-0 in games he has missed, including the postseason, since he joined them as a first-round pick in 2013, per Tim McManus of ESPN.
Fred Johnson will start at right tackle while Lane Johnson is out.
Eagles center Cam Jurgens (concussion) returned to full participation in Friday’s practice, though the team lists him as questionable. Brett Toth is his replacement.
Offensive tackle Myles Hinton (back) and offensive lineman Willie Lampkin (knee/ankle) also are questionable. Hinton, a rookie, has not played this season and remains on injured reserve; Lampkin also has not played a down and remains on injured reserve.
The Cowboys are healthy as they head into a stretch of three games in 12 days.
Only two players have an injury designation this week, though one of them is edge rusher Jadeveon Clowney. He is listed as questionable with shoulder and neck injuries.
Clowney, who has 19 tackles and two sacks in seven games, was limited in all three practices this week.
The Cowboys added backup offensive lineman Hakeem Adeniji (illness) to the practice report after he missed Friday’s on-field work. He is questionable.
Everyone else on the team was a full participant, including Dak Prescott.
The Cowboys quarterback had a limited practice on Wednesday with a hip injury.
The Lions’ defense stopped the Eagles’ tush push twice on Sunday, and on two other occasions the Eagles lined up to tush push but got called for false start penalties, as Detroit showed that Philadelphia’s Brotherly Shove isn’t as unstoppable as it sometimes seems. Lions defensive lineman Alim McNeill says there was nothing fancy about Detroit’s defensive success.
“There’s no scheme to defending the tush push, just more of a want-to. Just the willing and want to get down there and stop the play. There’s no scheme to it, we just wanted to stop it. we didn’t want them to run the tush push four times and get it all four times,” McNeill said.
McNeill said any time the Eagles were in a tush push situation, the Lions brought out their “big base defense” of himself, DJ Reader, Tyleik Williams and Roy Lopez. But he said it’s not just about the big bodies on the line.
“You can line up in that but you have to stop it, you’ve got to have that want-to.It sounds good to talk about it but to actually do it in the game is a lot different,” McNeill said. “It’s a hard play to defend. It’s just a mentality thing. Like anything else on the field, you’ve got to have the mentality before anything.”
All of the Eagles’ opponents will study what the Lions did, but if McNeill is to be believed, there’s not much about stopping the tush push that can be studied. It’s just about finding the players who will get low and refuse to be moved.
