Ryan Tannehill was seen taking 1st team reps at practice on Wednesday and was wearing a sleeve over the thigh and knee to help protect his strained quad and bone bruise. However, Matt Moore was also seen taking snaps, and some reports even said that Tannehill wasn’t limping/favoring the leg, but not going full speed. I’m not sure if that was more by design or if it was something that was limiting him, but keep an eye on the situation as bone bruises can be very painful when you get hit or land on that area and, as I’ve stated in the past, they’re slow healers.
Both Dez Bryant and DeMarco Murray missed practice on Wednesday. Bryant’s hip injury seems to be limiting him a bit, but there’s not reports about the extent or severity of the injury, so hard to tell if this was precautionary or not. Watch his participation levels as Friday approaches and see if things change for the better, but barring a setback, I can’t imagine he doesn’t play this week. Murray, on the other hand, needs to get back onto the practice field before he can get back into game shape, so him missing practice today is a bit concerting. I’d lean more towards him not playing, taking another week to allow the foot to heal, but with the Cowboys’ backfield such a mess, I can see why they’d want to rush him back. Again, monitor practice participation this week.
Mikel Leshoure did not practice Wednesday, which leads me to believe that the leg injury he suffered during Sunday’s game was a bit more serious than Coach Schwartz led the media folks to believe. Obviously, with a diagnosis of “leg injury”, it’s hard to say what’s going on exactly, but another report came out after practice that said Leshoure missed practice for personal reasons and not anything injury related. Either way you slice it, you may want to speculatively Joique Bell as insurance just in case Leshoure can’t go as Bell did get the bulk of the carries at the end of the game in Leshoure’s place.
I’m starting to get worried about Calvin Johnson and his bum knee, as he just hasn’t looked like himself the last couple weeks. Even with the Lions’ offense finally getting of the schneid and putting up a solid day, it was all done without Johnson being more than a decoy. Granted he’s drawing double teams constantly and getting a lot of the defense’s attention, which can explain his lack of production as well, but also remember that he’s been getting double teamed for years and it never stopped him before. My biggest concern is his lack of explosiveness and burst. A few times I saw him going up for balls that were a bit high and it seems like he’s not exploding into the air as he normally does. He’s probably going to sit out tomorrow’s practice as well (he didn’t practice today) with limited participation on Friday, but I don’t think there’s any chance he misses game time. Just monitor the situation and see if any setbacks/progress are noted.
I read something interesting about Jake Locker and the reason why he’s been out so long with this dislocated shoulder issue. Apparently, he’s been dealing with a fracture in the region as well, which totally explains why he’s sat week after week. Remember our 6 week fracture healing rule of thumb, so that puts him on track to play week 11 or 12. Just an FYI if he’s out there on the waiver wire, week 10 might be a good time to snatch him up.
Ziad Dahdul 