Cowboys
- The Cowboys are confident LT Tyron Smith will be available to play on Thursday after missing the past three games with an ankle injury. (Todd Archer)
- Cowboys strength and conditioning coach Cedric Smith is also in the COVID-19 protocols. As a member of the coaching staff, Smith is vaccinated. (Archer)
- Cowboys HC Mike McCarthy said G Connor McGovern remains the starter at left guard. (Calvin Watkins)
- McCarthy said DE DeMarcus Lawrence will be activated soon, although that doesn’t mean he will play Thanksgiving: “He’ll be activated here shortly. He’s champing at the bit.” (Jon Machota)
- There’s optimism in the Cowboys’ building that WR CeeDee Lamb could clear the concussion protocol in time to play on Thursday, according to McCartney: “There’s different levels of the protocol so the fact that he was in the meetings today is definitely a big step in the right direction.” (Archer)
- Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says WR Amari Cooper isn’t vaccinated, and since he is asymptomatic, he wouldn’t have been tested last weekend had he been vaccinated. (Michael Gehlken)
- Jones added despite Cooper’s overall strong character, him being unvaccinated hurt the team: “It is a ‘we’ thing when you walk into the locker room. You can’t win individually. This is the classic case of how it can impact a team. And this popped us. This did pop us.” (Clarence Hill Jr.)
- Jones does view Cooper being out as a chance to rest his injured hamstring. (Gehlken)
- Cowboys second-round CB Kelvin Joseph has returned to the team after being away for personal reasons. (Gehlken)
Eagles
Eagles HC Nick Sirianni said QB Jalen Hurts makes defenses change things up because they have to respect his ability to extend plays as well as the ability to create his own yards on the ground. Philadelphia just cracked a Saints defense that was historically good against the run in part because of the stress Hurts causes.
“I think Jalen is a special player that forces defenses to play different,” Sirianni said, via PFT. “You look at the tape and again I think I told you guys early in the week, you look at the stat sheet, you look at where they are, you look at their defense, but you also want to do what you do well. We know we have been running the ball well and it’s a little different when Jalen is in there. You try to look at some teams that they’ve played that are similar to that, but you want to make them stop what you do well first and that’s definitely what our goal was going out there.”
Giants
Giants HC Joe Judge has been supportive of embattled OC Jason Garrett so far this season. But Monday night’s offensive debacle (pun intended) against the Buccaneers seems to have caused a shift. Judge went from affirming Garrett to pointedly not ruling out a change. It proved to be a harbinger of Judge’s decision Tuesday to fire Garrett.
“I have faith in all the people on our team: players, coaches, everyone,” he said via Pat Leonard of the NY Daily News. “But look, we’ll assess everything as a team and make any move we need to going forward.”
“I’m gonna watch the tape, I’m gonna evaluate everything: every player, every coach, make all the decisions that are best for the team going forward,” he added. “Simply put on that: everything is accounted for, everything is evaluated. Every player, every coach. Everything’s evaluated.”
The Giants scored just 10 points and their lone touchdown came when a Buccaneers turnover gifted them the ball inside the five. They weren’t at 100 percent but they had most of their skill players healthy, including RB Saquon Barkley, WR Kenny Golladay, both TEs Kyle Rudolph and Evan Engram and first-round WR Kadarius Toney. Judge said that level of ineptness is unacceptable and he empathizes with players who are frustrated at the lack of creativity.
“We’ve got to do a better job of scoring points,” Judge said. “We’ve got to do a better job of putting our players in position to make plays. We have too many good players. We have to put them in a better position to capitalize on it. That’s it. We gotta make sure we sit down as a coaching staff and understand how we have to play this game and give our players a chance to make plays. So in reference to any kind of [bad player] body language at the end of the game, I’ll handle the corrections. But if I was a player, there’d be some things I’d be frustrated with, too.”
- NJ.com’s Zack Rosenblatt says multiple sources familiar with the locker room dynamic have indicated multiple players were frustrated with Garrett.
- Judge said they need to get Golladay more than the two targets he got on Monday night: “Is it frustrating? For me, yeah, just because I haven’t gotten in the end zone yet. But at the end of the day, as long as I’m making catches to help us get touchdowns, I’m OK.”
- Other players stood by Garrett, at least publicly, including Barkley who said they need to execute the plays that are called better: “Yes, I believe in him. Everyone wants to blame the coaches. I feel like sometimes instead of pointing the finger, you [have] to point the thumb. Look at yourself in the mirror.”
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