Cowboys make MULTIPLE moves - More Moves incoming...

The Dallas Cowboys have made multiple roster moves and more moves are on the horizon as we got the announcement of two cuts on the Cowboys roster but with two guys potentially returning this week from the IR, did Brian Schottenheimer just show his hand? We talk about it here today on the show. Welcome to Cowboys Digest everybody, I'm Jace Andrews and I hope you're having a great day wherever you guys might be. Quick thank you for all the support you've shown on this channel over the past couple of days and we hope you can keep showing it because we're going to keep coming with the content and more to come as we get deeper and deeper into the season and closer and closer to the trade deadline as well. Let's get into the cuts first, as that was the move that was made by the Dallas Cowboys. They have waived Amari DiMercato and D.J. Rogers. Amari, the running back out of TCU, the guy we signed off of the Chiefs practice squad at the beginning of the season, kind of bounced around practice squad, 53-man roster. Ultimately, now he gets cut. D.J. Rogers, a guy on the practice squad. He's a tight end. he is also going to be cut as well so these things are obviously something to monitor whenever these things happen because one, first of all, it opens up two spots on the practice squad and that allows for the Cowboys to have flexibility there but more it points toward the return of some injured reserve players for the Dallas Cowboys and while that might be a kind of interesting thing because you got practice squad players in theory, right? Well yeah but you're also when you put players back onto the roster. They're going to send some players, hopefully, to the practice squad in theory. I mean, obviously, you have to have them clear waivers and all that, but that kind of is the plan. So, again, this was all on Tuesday. Amari DiMarcato and DJ Rogers, two spaces potentially added for additions for this Dallas Cowboys team. Now, these additions probably will happen before their upcoming game against the Arizona Cardinals, Fun enough, Amari DiMarcato's former team from last year. Now, the Cowboys are heavily favored in this game on Kalshi at 72%, But I'm going to go one step further. The Cowboys offense looked to be back in a rhythm this week. So I'm going to say they score over 30 and a half points. And if I trade $80 on that, I'm going to get $139.54 cents back. You can make this trade on Kalshi because you're trading directly against other users, not the house like an additional sports book. You're buying yes or no contracts on the outcome of real life events across sports, politics, or even the weather, for example. And you can trade on the game. You can trade on the point score. You can trade on touchdowns. But either way, make sure you do it on Kalshi because we got a special deal for you if you're interested in trying out our presenting sponsor. You can use the link in the description or in the pinned comment, and when you use code DIGESTNFL, new users who trade $25 are going to get instantly added $55 into their account. It's amazing, and it's why I can get those $80 trades, so make sure you go check it out today, and we appreciate Kalshi sponsoring today's show. So, roster is kind of getting switched around. The Cowboys have a pivotal couple weeks coming up in regards to the trade deadline after the win against the Philadelphia Eagles. They're in a decent spot in that NFC East standing page. However, you have a game against the Cardinals, a team you should beat, and a game against the Colts, who are going through a fire sale right now, giving off DeForest Buckner to the 49ers and trading away Quenton Nelson to the Seahawks yesterday and probably going to trade off Jonathan Taylor and Downs as Josh Downs as well, the brother of Caleb Downs. So I think that that should be two winnable games, but you've got to do it to put yourself into a buyer mindset heading into the trade deadline. Now, the good news behind that is that the NFC East is a very winnable division. And as much as I want to sit here and say the Giants have looked good the past couple weeks, I truthfully just don't trust J.J. McCarthy to be a competent quarterback for more than a couple weeks. Maybe that's naive of me, but I really don't think that's going to be the way it goes. I think that that can be an open spot for the Dallas Cowboys to jump in there. And, of course, you've got to find the spots to kind of do it. So why Dallas had room to make here? So DeMircato did not dress against Philadelphia. Obviously, he was waived, he was re-signed, he was on the 53-man roster, he wasn't. Well, they knew that he was probably not going to be coming here. Tyler Goodson has taken over the RB2 role and strangled it, and as long as they don't have injuries to Javonte or Goodson, probably not going to see DeMircato. Given the IR returns are possible but not automatic, it made sense that this was kind of going. But why would they make the move if the IR returns were not going to happen? Well, that's kind of the information we're going. P.J. Locke, along with Amaris Osemele, are also coming back from IR. P.J. is one that is closing in on returning. Now, he was ruled out this past week versus the Philadelphia Eagles. So was Marist Leofau. They did not travel. Both of them remained on IR, even though their 21-day practice window opened up last week. Now, just as a little quick reminder, your 21-day practice window is the three-weeks period where you can practice with the team, but you are not technically activated off the IR. However, once you start that 21-day window, you have to be activated in that time frame because if you do not, you will have to go back on the IR without practice and will have to be there for the rest of the season. Now, you wouldn't put them on the 21-day window if you didn't think they were close. And P.J. is a pretty pivotal piece to this defense. I want to say that he is one of the more underrated pieces on the team that was injured in the past couple of weeks. The secondary, obviously, as I mentioned, had been kind of dismantled throughout the first four or five weeks of the season. We're starting to kind of see that health come back and do not just the secondary, but the defense as a whole. We saw Kobe Durant and Demarvion Overshown come back last week, and both of them make big-time plays. Obviously, Agent Zero getting that pick to, I'm not going to say steal the game, but put it really in the Cowboys' favor. You're really close to getting P.J. Locke back alongside guys like Downs, Bell, Thompson could be potentially coming up soon. You've got Juanta Thomas and Malik Hooker. So, I mean, last week we started Elijah Clark over Marquise Bell, a UDFA from Syracuse. You are struggling still in that safety position. You've just been able to kind of work through it over the past couple of weeks. And maybe this is a bad thing to say to me, but also injured or not, the defense, it wasn't going to look the same because of how bad it was playing. So let's take a look at P.J. Locke and, of course, the timeline on all this. His foot injury prompted an I.R. stint back in September. He returned to practice. His window opened last week. However, of course, he did not play versus the Eagles. Now, there has been no formal activation as of the time of this recording. The hope is that that can be activated either tomorrow, Friday, maybe even Saturday before the game, but right now we wait and look. Now, a big thing that I want to say is there's two sides to the argument of players on injured reserve coming back over the next couple of weeks. The first is that it's the Arizona Cardinals. If he's not fully ready, do not play him. We'll be fine, in theory, right? But there's also the other side of it is the Arizona Cardinals. Why not let him kind of ease his way back into things before we have to face off against the San Francisco 49ers, who at that point could potentially have maybe a healthier wide receiver room as you know right now it's not looking so good for them but the wide receiver room could definitely be in a better spot so personally I would love to see them come back this week just to start kind of knocking off the dust so to say and that kind of goes the same way for Marist Leofau who is an interesting part of this defense if you don't remember Leofau kind of had his position changed this past offseason and so that's something that I think was interesting obviously being a middle linebacker for a majority of his career. Now he switches to the outside linebacker position. And so I think that in a lot of ways, he is going to be in an interesting spot when he does return because he hasn't really played again. He was injured in the preseason during the training camp area. So like we have not really seen Marist Leofau playing that outside linebacker more than a little bit here and there. I would like to get him to play against the Cardinals and against the Colts before he has to go up against a really talented offensive line for the 49ers. Again, both of their 21-day practice windows opened early this week. None of them are ready to return, and they could be ready for this upcoming matchup versus the Cardinals on Sunday. Now again, Leofau is in a different place, but his last season was interesting. 30 tackles, he did have one sack, but it was a decision made by not just Christian Parker and the way that he was going to run his defense, but also the way that this team was going to maneuver with Leofau moving forward and what they thought would be the best situation for Marist. So, knowing that, you are putting him into a better position for what you think his skill set is. However, we don't know if that's going to pan out, right? That's not like a 100%, you know, going to happen type thing. So, it's going to be interesting. Elijah Garcia has been really, really great on the defensive line as of late, and that's probably where Leofau is going to take some of the snaps, and so the role is going to be interesting when he does come back. It was a fractured forearm, by the way, that sidelined him, so interesting there. He's projected to be a hybrid linebacker outside rusher, So I don't know what that looks like to be honest, but we're going to see. He also offers special teams contributions. And of course, the activation for him has also not been announced as of yet. This is a situation, though, where you want everybody available. This NFC East is a winnable division, but every game matters in this because of how close it's going to be. So what's the problem with activating him now? Well, it's because if they're not healthy and of course, in a lot of ways, you want to see what this defense is like fully healthy. Even if PJ and Merced are backups, you've got to see what it's like. So, you know what you need at the trade deadline, which is the final thing I want to go to because Jerry Jones continues to leave the door open for more moves for the Dallas Cowboys. Now, he knows he's going to add potentially at the NFL trade deadline one way or another, saying, you know, if we could do it where we sit right now, I would add to this team. But the adding to it is a big statement. It's unlikely we'll get that opportunity from the outside coming in, which is an interesting thing in itself. But if it's there, I'll do it. Now, if you want more on the whole comments from Jerry and, of course, the connection to Josh Sweat, check out our video from yesterday. Pretty solid stuff there. But the defense has been the problem this season. It's been a disappointing part. Jerry even said it. The defense is really not where we expect it to be. So how exactly do you make it better? Well, maybe you go out and you make a move. Now, there's a couple possible steps. You activate P.J. Locke and Mazi Smith. They swing, and hopefully that can help some out. And then, of course, I still think activating them or not, their backups, pursuing outside defender, if opportunity emerges, is something to definitely go in there. But I want to ask you a question as we move forward here. What should the Dallas Cowboys do next? Activate Locke and Mazi Smith this week. Should they add another defender? Should they do both? If you're asking me, I'm typing C all day. I'm thinking this is a both. I want them back, and they're great pieces to add in the depth-wise, but they are not going to significantly change what this defense is. Were they better last week? Sure. But if Saquon Barkley is healthy versus us, I think that's a different game. And we also faced an Eagle squad that was rancid with injuries. Their wide receiver one was out. Their wide receiver two was out. The QB one was out. the running back one is basically non-existent in the game and the time that he was he ran all over you so i get concerned still and obviously like you have cardinals and colts to kind of keep figuring stuff out but then the big boys start to come to town you got to figure it out by then so let us know what you think down in the comment section what about these moves uh do you think Leif How and Locke will be back this week and of course is there somebody that you want to add and if you think they should let us know down in the comment section for now though guys we appreciate watching we'll see you next time