Borrowing liberally from the DMN blog.
Bobby Carpenter has a slight tear in his quad but he’s going to play through it.
Cowboys LB Bobby Carpenter said in the locker room this morning that he's dealing with a slight tear in his right quadriceps tendon.
Carpenter has been told by doctors and trainers that the injury requires 4-6 weeks of rest to heal, and he's decided against sitting to get back to 100 percent. And he's also come to grips with the fact that the quad simply won't be at full strength this season, provided he doesn't reverse course.
"I wouldn't say it's really all that terribly frustrating," he said. "I had a pretty good game when I was in last week. I don't know how much it's affected my performance. I think I take pretty good care of myself. Hopefully, it's something I'll be able to play through."
Captain Caveman runs the risk of tearing it fully which would end the season. He’s become a good special teams player this year, picking up Ryan Fowler’s role from last year and was very involved with containing Devin Hester last week on kickoffs.
Greg Ellis isn’t as optimistic as Wade Phillips. Shocker, I know.
Ellis didn't want to shoot Phillips down, but he didn't sound optimistic that he'd play against the Rams. He won't do as much during today's practice as he did yesterday.
"It's making a lot of progress," Ellis said. "You can see why people say it's kind of a year deal. From the time I first started having problems in training camp to now, it's a huge difference on the positive side. But, still, it's not all the way there."
Ellis doesn't expect to step back into the starting lineup, because he thinks first-round pick Anthony Spencer has earned that job.
"I think he deserves to be out there getting it done," Ellis said. "I'm not saying that's how it's going to happen. That's Wade's decision. But I've got a lot of respect for a rookie coming in here being thrown into the fire the way he has been."
John Clayton on what’s wrong with the Cowboys. Before you get too riled up, he was assigned to do that for every team.
Diagnosis: Sore spots on defense
• Cure: Maybe the Cowboys aren't as talented on defense as everyone thought. Terence Newman's absence because of a foot injury exposed a big dropoff at cornerback after the starters. Despite the addition of Ken Hamlin at safety, the team still gives up big plays in the middle of the field. The defensive line still is adjusting to some of the aggressive one-gap schemes used by new head coach Wade Phillips. This shouldn't be a big deal. Phillips must keep being aggressive in rushing DeMarcus Ware and Anthony Spencer and hunker down against the run.
John Clayton - peddling generic analysis for years.
Here’s a story on Norv Turner and the Chargers poor start. It got me thinking about the similarities between Wade Phillips and Norv Turner. Besides being the two candidates for the Cowboys job this offseason, they are both known as great coordinators but not great head coaches. Both are considered in the guru status on their side of the ball, but haven’t set the world on fire in their head coaching stints. It’s true Phillips has a much better record than Turner - a winning record - but their reputations were similar. Both are renowned for being laid-back and nice guys. But they couldn’t have had more dissimilar starts to the season. Also, Wade can get fiery; he gets pumped on the sidelines. In this deal, the Cowboys made the right move.