There are plenty of things that can go wrong for a football team during training camp. The worst thing that can happen is when several key players get injured. That is what has happened at the Dallas Cowboys’ training camp so far.
Thankfully it doesn’t look like any of the injuries are too severe besides the torn Achilles of Tyrone Crawford, an injury that ended his season before it really even started. Although Crawford is just one player, his injury could severely affect this defense if other players don’t step up.
The defensive line could be in trouble because, at the moment, Spencer is out for four weeks with a knee bruise. Jay Ratliff is out with hamstring issues again, and Ikponmwosa Igbinosun has a hurt foot. In addition to Crawford, that means the Cowboys are missing four defensive linemen that were all expected to contribute.
Spencer will be ready to play when he steps back on the field but the fact that Ratliff is dealing with hamstring issues again is cause for concern amongst Cowboys’ faithful. That worry is well founded based on the fact that if he goes down with a serious injury or misses as many games as he did last year, the line could struggle.
Crawford is important because he is a player that the coaching staff believes could play both inside and outside along the defensive line. Essentially if Ratliff’s hamstring keeps him out, the Cowboys will have lost two of their best defensive tackles.
The good news is that Ratliff’s injury doesn’t seem to be too serious at the moment, and hopefully he’ll be 100 % by September. Still depth could be an issue, and that is why the Cowboys brought in George Selvie and Landon Cohen for workouts.
Both Selvie and Cohen have bounced around the league a bit, but the team is looking to sign a young player for cheap and work on developing them, so either of these guys might be the perfect fit.
Now the Cowboys will really start to miss having a player like Josh Brent. Thankfully it is still very early which gives the team a chance to bring in new guys to add depth, and also gives players the opportunity to get healthy.
