Cowboys go against the Oakland Raiders tonight in Arlington. There are several players along with tight end Martellus Bennett who is out with an ankle injury, suffered before the start of training camp, who will not be seen in the game tonight.
Rookie linebacker Sean Lee, Guard Montrae Holland, wide receiver Dez Bryant, tackle Alex Barron, tight end Scott Sicko, safety Pat Watkins, cornerback Cletis Gordon, defensive tackle Sean Lissemore, defensive end Marcus Spears, safety Akwasi Owusu-Ansah and linebacker Stephen Hodge will all miss the Raiders game tonight.
Coach Phillip had this to say about the situation,”We will play our starters more than we did, but it’s not going to be a full half or anything like that,” Phillips said. “And I do want to watch the young guys and the new guys and the guys who are improving, because we had quite a few of them that did well [vs. the Bengals].”
The Cowboys have just two healthy tight ends — Jason Witten and DajLeon Farr, who was signed Tuesday. Fullback Chris Gronkowski has gotten some reps at tight end the last two days, and he could fill a void on a limited basis.
“Certainly tight end is a concern for this ballgame,” Phillips said after Wednesday’s walkthrough practice at Valley Ranch. “After Witten goes out we have only one tight end available to play and he got here [Wednesday]. So DajLeon Farr will be playing a lot of the game and we have to make a lot of adjustments and you’ll see in the game the adjustments we made.”
Dallas and Oakland have played each other twenty-six times in the preseason over the years and have played each other ten times during the regular season. There is no love lost between the Cowboys and the Raiders and we have all seen the on field fights that typically break out during the preseason games between both teams. Although, thankfully they have never been major all out brawls.
Expect the game tonight to be hard hitting for a preseason game. Hopefully nobody else gets injured tonight!
The Stadium parking lot will open at 4pm, so for all you tailgaters make sure you have plenty of water since it will still be well over 100 degrees in Arlington this afternoon.
Oh and by the way Big shout out to the COWBOY NATION! GO COWBOYS !!
