The Trevon Diggs saga saw a new chapter play out Sunday night, with the star defender watching in street clothes as the Cowboys dropped a crucial game to Minnesota by a 34-26 score.
The result all but dashes the Cowboys’ postseason chances. And with a playoff berth existing only as the faintest mathematical technicality now, the apparent clash between Diggs and Dallas will likely take center stage as the team preps for the Chargers… with an important decision of some sort coming before the weekend.
The 27-year-old cornerback believed he’d be back in the lineup for Week 15’s date with the Vikings, his first action after seven missed games. But Saturday brought the announcement that Diggs would remain on the shelf a little while longer.
“I thought I was going to come out here and play,” Diggs told reporters after Sunday’s game, “but they felt otherwise. And that’s just what it was.”
“It’s pretty difficult,” he said of watching from the sideline. “Of course, I want to be out there. I want to help these guys win games. I want to help these guys put up numbers. I want to just help these guys. These are my brothers. These are guys I’ve been with for my whole career, so I want to be out there with them.”
Diggs had been listed as limited all week in practice but seemed to be past the knee issue that- according to the official account- landed him on IR after Week 7’s contest. The two-time Pro Bowler had sat out that game, too, but for a separate injury: a concussion he reportedly suffered at home in what has been described only as “an accident.”
Two months after the fact, neither Diggs nor the team has ever provided any detail about that incident. Diggs simply ignored a question about it at his locker on Sunday.
Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer said that, despite the week of prep work Diggs put in, the team hadn’t seen enough to activate him for this most recent contest.
“There’s a reason it’s a three-week ramp-up period, and it takes time,” Schottenheimer said in his postgame press conference. “I know he feels healthy and he feels ready to play. We obviously felt a little bit different.”
Team owner Jerry Jones was more blunt, even seeming to bristle at- once again- being asked repeatedly about a marquee player embroiled in a dispute with the club.
“Diggs isn’t healthy enough to be out there for us. Period,” he told media members Sunday night before repeating himself to make the point. “Did everybody hear that? I said he’s not healthy enough for us to put him out there.”
Many observers have already tabbed Diggs as a cut candidate for the Cowboys this coming offseason and are suggesting that the former second-round draft pick has already played his last snap in a Dallas uniform.
Diggs has appeared in just 19 games over the past three seasons, something Jones alluded to when he was asked about the rampant speculation regarding Diggs’s future with the team moving forward.
“I don’t have to look at that right now,” Jones explained. “We, of course, are very disappointed that he hasn’t had more play time this year. Frankly, I’m disappointed that he hasn’t had play time over the last several years, and his injuries have had a lot to do with that.”
But most believe the animosity is about far more than just Diggs’s unfortunate injuries, and the media’s recent full-court press for answers goes beyond inquiring about a simple IR stint.
The tumultuous relationship shared by Diggs and the Cowboys has been in a rough patch all season, dating back to the club fining Diggs $500,000 for not meeting team workout requirements over the summer as he rehabbed from another knee injury. There were also questions surrounding Diggs’s commitment to his rehab efforts in back-to-back offseasons, especially considering the $97 million investment the Cowboys made in him with his 2023 contract.
One insider report from over the weekend stated that “the relationship between Diggs and the organization has ‘soured’ and ‘been severed’,” suggesting that had more to do with Sunday’s benching than Diggs’s knee.
“No comment,” was Jones’s response when asked about that report, though he added that the decision to hold a player out can come from different individuals within the organization and for various reasons.
“It can be training, it can be doctor, it can be Schotty’s call, or it can be behavior. A lot of ways that you have to evaluate whether you are to get on the field.”
Diggs claimed to have no further insight about exactly why he didn’t suit up Sunday.
“I don’t know the special requirements that I need to show that I can play,” Diggs said. “I’ve been in practice, I’ve been practicing well. I’ve been running around, doing what I supposed to. So it’s not my decision, at the end of the day.”
Schottenheimer also alluded to the notion that it’s more than Diggs’s knee keeping him out of the lineup.
“Different things. Consistency, I think I’ve been very honest about that,” he stated. “With all of our players, there’s things that they need to do from a consistency standpoint to make us feel good about putting them out there. I know he felt like he wanted to play and he felt like he was ready to play. We made a decision as a team, and I made a decision, and we went a different direction. So we’ll see how this week goes.”
The Cowboys must make a decision by Saturday. That’s when Diggs’s 21-day evaluation window officially closes. If he is not activated to the gameday roster, he reverts to season-ending injured reserve.
Even if Diggs is elevated back to the active roster, there is nothing that says the Cowboys have to play him. He could be a healthy scratch for any or all of the team’s three remaining games.
Quarterback Dak Prescott shared that he had some words of advice for Diggs on how to prevent that.
“I had a conversation with him when he told me about the news that they gave him about not playing,” Prescott said from the podium following Sunday’s loss, “and it was just about keeping his head up. I told him, ‘Simple as this: Go Monday and ask what they expect from you so you have the plan throughout the week so you can make sure you do exactly that.’ … And he accepted that.”
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This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: Trevon Diggs, Cowboys at odds over why star CB isn’t playing
