Blogging The Boys
The latest headlines surrounding the Dallas Cowboys.
DaRon could be making his way on to the football field this Sunday against the Washington Commanders.
Assuming Bland is medically cleared to take the field against the Washington Commanders in Week 12, it will mark a total of 315 days from when he last played — on Jan. 14 against the Green Bay Packers in last season’s playoffs — or a total of 319 days if he’s held out until the matchup against the New York Giants on Thanksgiving.
Either way, he says he has zero concerns about being rusty, and it would likely help that, for the first time as a starter, he’d take the field with both Trevon Diggs and Jourdan Lewis.
“Yeah, definitely, shoot — just putting the helmet back on felt good,” said Bland.
Some might find it difficult to locate fuel in a season wherein the team has fallen to 3-7, and especially when, physically, your body has prevented you from taking to the field and trying to help prevent that spiral.
Bland is far from mentally checked out though, and he has zero interest in being shut down for the remaining seven games.
It will be difficult to evaluate Mike Zimmer’s impact in 2024 as injuries have made it difficult to implement a solid defensive scheme.
Injuries might be viewed as excuses, but they are also valid reasons.
“I do think when you’re down to your fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth defensive linemen, and you’re down to your fourth, fifth, whatever corner situation, I think that’s going to make a difference,” Zimmer said. “If we had all those players healthy and playing, then I think it would be different in a lot of ways.”
Zimmer has changed his plans, adjusting his fronts, coming up with different personnel packages and turning more to blitzing as the season has gone on.
“Losing our guy, our pass rushing guy [Parsons] and a couple of our other guys, you got to create other different things,” linebacker DeMarvion Overshown said. “I’m sure this is something he cooked up before the injuries, where now it’s, ‘OK, now we’re filling in pieces,’ and you can’t really just throw everything that you been doing at training camp at somebody that just got here a week or two ago. So he has definitely been dealing with stuff, but I definitely can see here he’s getting comfortable with his guys on the field. He’s able to dial it up and trust that we’re going to get the job done.”
But there have been times where Zimmer has schemed up a free rusher on the opposing quarterback only to see the defender miss a sack. Two weeks...
