The panic has begun. The first "sky is falling" article is out. Tom Orsborn gathers all our deepest, darkest fears about the Terence Newman injury and pastes them together into one scary scenario. I hope he’s wrong, and there is one reason to think he is, he misdiagnoses the injury. While he calls it plantar fasciitis earlier in the article, he compares it to a much more severe injury.
Newman's ailment is the same one that forced rookie receiver Isaiah Stanback to miss much of his senior season at the University of Washington and all of the Cowboys offseason work.
Uh, Stanback had a Lisfranc injury, which is the actual fracture of bones in the mid-region of the foot. Here’s what happened when Stanback had his Lisfranc injury.
Following the surgery, a normal recovery and rehabilitation time is expected to extend approximately eight to 12 months. Stanback will wear a cast and limit weightbearing on the foot for the next six to eight weeks, following surgery.
Somehow that doesn’t sound anything like the Newman diagnosis of plantar fasciitis. But, there is a point to his article - the foot injury Newman has could bother him throughout the season. Or it could be gone relatively soon, we don’t know. Or it could bother him but not enough to limit his effectiveness. In other words, we don’t know. So I’m not going to panic yet but remain cautiously optimistic.
Nick Eatman goes all out in defense of Greg Ellis. He makes the argument that the Cowboys should wait on Greg Ellis for as long as it takes even if that means carrying him week-to-week on the 53-man roster.
But if he's not ready for that first game, then the Cowboys should simply wait until he is. If it's one game, two games, even 10 games.
Wait for Greg Ellis. He's worth it. Don't worry about his roster spot. Don't try to replace him with someone that is healthy. If you put Ellis on injured reserve now, he's lost for the season. With his ability to rush the passer, he's worth stashing on the inactive list each week until he's healthy again.
Even if he wasn't ready until November, a full year after the initial injury, that still would be OK. What an early Christmas present that would be to get a nine-year veteran who is a proven pass rusher, with seemingly fresh legs, to join your team while you're trying to make a push to the playoffs.
I don’t know, at some point you have to think about doing something if he can’t practice or play. If you just keep carrying him and he never gets better then you might end up wasting a roster spot for a full year. I really don’t know the answer to all this. But maybe Greg will experience a miracle veteran-recovery just towards the end of preseason, just in time to start playing in the regular season. At least I hope so.