If you could go back before the start of the season and draw up a worst-case scenario for the Dallas Cowboys, we’re probably living it out, aren’t we?
Micah Parsons has missed significant time due to injury as he awaits a contract extension. Dak Prescott got his big-money contract before the start of the season and is now on injured reserve with a major injury. The loss of Dan Quinn has loomed large for the Dallas defense. The division and Wild Card playoff spots are well out of reach before Thanksgiving.
To say it’s been a disastrous year for Dallas would be putting it mildly, to say the least. Now, we have to start thinking about which Cowboys players could potentially be benched here in the second half of the season.
1. Cooper Rush
I personally just don’t get what the Cowboys are doing here. We all saw the struggles of Trey Lance in the preseason, especially in the preseason finale when he got his most extensive snaps yet. But the idea of trading a fourth-round pick for Lance last year and letting him rot on the bench has absolutely no merit.
Cooper Rush is a fine backup and spot starter, but he’s not the type of player you want out there in a lost season. With the way the Cowboys have struggled offensively to run the ball effectively as well (31st in yards and yards per attempt), Lance could potentially even provide a spark with his running abilities, too.
At some point, hopefully in the near future — and with all due respect to Rush — we will see Lance out there getting his shot with the Cowboys. Lance will be a free agent in 2025 and nobody knows what he’s capable of in real NFL regular season games.
2. Ezekiel Elliott
It’s not like the Cowboys have great alternatives at this point, but you can’t help but wonder if they will decide to bench or cut ties with Ezekiel Elliott at some point this season. It’s probably unlikely we’d see them cut him entirely, but Elliott hasn’t been effective in his return to Dallas.
He’s currently averaging less than 20 yards per game and 3.3 yards per carry as the backup to Rico Dowdle. It’s a tough current state for the former Cowboys star.
In terms of the overall running back position, the Cowboys are going to have to attack it head-on in the 2025 offseason. But for the time being, what can they even reasonably do? They can continue giving the lion’s share of carries to Dowdle and perhaps even incorporate Deuce Vaughn a little bit more and see what he’s got with some extended looks. As previously mentioned, they could also throw Lance into the lineup and possibly have him spearhead the revival of the running game this season.
It doesn’t look like Dalvin Cook is really going to make meaningful contributions to this Cowboys team and Malik Davis is the only other running back on the practice squad. Maybe we’ll see the Cowboys promote him at some point.
Whatever the case, there is no real benefit to giving Elliott carries at this point. He’s not elevating the offense and he’s not going to be with the team beyond this season. The Cowboys would be better off evaluating guys who have a shot to stick around in 2025.
3. Jake Ferguson
The Cowboys are already short-handed enough offensively that they don’t need to be benching guys just for the sake of it. But after suffering a concussion recently, we’ll see if they choose to play it safe with tight end Jake Ferguson.
Ferguson had a breakout year in 2023 for the Cowboys and is once again the team’s second-leading receiver here in 2024 behind CeeDee Lamb, but that’s not necessarily a great thing. Ferguson is averaging less than nine yards per reception and the Cowboys have a little incentive to potentially keep him on the sideline.
They need to get a more extensive look at 2023 second-round pick Luke Schoonmaker who has just 21 targets in the passing game this season. Schoonmaker could very well be this team’s TE1 of the future, but he needs more opportunities in the passing game.
The same could be said of rookie free agent Brevyn Spann-Ford, one of the Cowboys’ most coveted undrafted players of the last couple of years. We saw Spann-Ford start to get more involved against the Houston Texans on Monday night and his involvement was extremely encouraging.
Schoonmaker and Spann-Ford are capable blockers. The more they play, the more confident they will be.
Ferguson is a promising young player for the Cowboys, but concussions are not to be trifled with. Pretty quick here, there are only going to be about five weeks left in the season.
The Cowboys might look at their depth chart and injury report after Thanksgiving and shut a handful of players down who will definitely be part of this team’s future that they don’t need going into the offseason on sour injury notes.
