NFC Notes: Commanders, Cowboys, Giants

Commanders

• Commanders HC Ron Rivera said that the team is concerned about DL Phidarian Mathis, who is scheduled for an MRI and X-Ray on his knee Monday. (John Keim)

Cowboys

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones addressed why the team opted not to sign now Bills DE Von Miller, who had another standout career performance against the Rams on Thursday night.

“Von Miller is a great football player,” Jones said on 105.3 The Fan. “I mean, you see them play at that level, and especially this early there is a lot of school of thought on older guys like that that when you really get those guys are for more so for the playoffs than it is for the first part, middle of the season. Now, granted, I’m sure there was a little bit of motivation for Von playing for the Rams and winning a Super Bowl to go out there and showcase what he’s all about. There are a lot of players that if there was unlimited cap space you could do things, but that wasn’t a short-term, one-year deal. It was a long-term deal, and we had to not only look at what we’re doing this year but look at what is going to be coming at us here in a year or two. Just made a conscientious decision there that we wanted to go with the direction that we went.”

• FOX Sports’ Jay Glazer, via Jon Machota of the Athletic, says Cowboys QB Dak Prescott felt a pop in his foot which is why he left practice and was listed on the injury report. However, X-rays were negative and the team thinks he just popped some scar tissue. 

Giants

Giants S Xavier McKinney said he voiced frustration in Week 17 of last season after the team finished 4-13. 

“I had reached a point where I was just mad,” McKinney said, via Dan Duggan of The Athletic. “I’m a competitor. I don’t like to lose. But there’s a way in how you compete. I just felt like that game, we weren’t competing. Sometimes you might lose games, it is what it is. But it’s easy to tell when somebody’s fighting to earn a spot or to win a game. When you see guys not competing, that’s where that frustration kicks in. So for me, that was a frustrating moment. I was mad. And I voiced that.”

McKinney added that he’s always viewed himself as a leader and a vocal member of the locker room. 

“I always saw (those questions) in a disrespectful way to me, because I’ve always seen myself as a leader, and I’ve always been a leader,” McKinney said. “I’ve always been somebody who tries to make other people better. Whether I did that vocally or I did that within my play and how I went about things, I still brought people along with me. So nothing changed for me.”

McKinney describes that he studied his own film after being a second-round pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. 

“I wrote down notes of, ‘Here’s why you weren’t first round,’” McKinney said. “I literally went through my tape and was like, ‘This is a reason you weren’t. (It’s) this, and you weren’t that.’ It was like, ‘Alright, what can I do to get better?’ I questioned myself of what more could I do, because I felt like I did everything I could, but looking back at it, there’s always more to do.”