Dallas Cowboys vs. Minnesota Vikings: Injury News, Matchups, Players To Watch | NFL Week 15 Preview

Dallas Cowboys vs. Minnesota Vikings: Injury News, Matchups, Players To Watch | NFL Week 15 Preview

We’re going to preview Cowboys versus Vikings since somebody me said the wrong name on the first preview this week. Most comments on today’s show gets a free raffle entry. Spam nine. We’ll have some fun on this one. Spam nine for JJ McCarthy and his alter eagle that has not played very well this year. We’ll do do a bit of trolling. Most comments saying nine gets that free raffle entry on today’s show. Week 15, the Dallas Cowboys hosting the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday Night Football. The Cowboys are 6 and 12 point favorites against a still kind of struggling Vikings team that was better last week, but still has a lot of room for improvement. As we do every week, the Cowboys injury report is based on what we know Thursday because we film it on our Thursday live show. Goes out Sunday morning. Details here. So, Tyler Gton again did not participate at practice Wednesday or Thursday. I do not think he will play. Lee Cooker back at practice after missing it on wins for the personal reason. He will be good to go. Clowny was limited again on Thursday. So, still kind of a toss up there. Trayvon Diggs limited again as well. We’ll see. I think it’s a Cowboys edition at this point. I think he thinks he’s ready to go. Jake Ferguson went from limited on Wednesday to a DNP on Thursday, which is rather concerning for the Cowboys. If Ferguson, that puts his status very much in doubt. He worked on the cords. He might not be able to play this week. Means he kind of did it in Wednesday’s practice. Really? Ced Lamb is not yet is I think actually has been cleared from concussion protocol because he was a full participant which I think is one of the next steps you have to do there. So he is trending towards playing. Hunter Lipkkey was a full participant after being limited earlier in the week. He’s good to go. Same with Donovan Wilson. Hakee deni Savone Rebel limited again as well with knee soreness. That is a slight red flag to me. Some Vikings injuries to watch. Uh mostly good here. Um, the one that stands out is Christian Darasaw did not participate on Thursday. That’s back-to-back DMPs with a knee issue. At minimum is going to be questionable this week and I might even lean toward him not playing, which is a big loss for Minnesota. Hawinson was backed limited on Thursday. He should be okay. Uh, Jordan Addison nursing the Achilles, but he was limited as well. Uh, Donovan Jackson was upgraded to full. Theo Jackson was uh upgraded to full as well. Aaron Jones still limited but should be able to play. Josh Patel same bucket. Levi Drake Rodriguez full. So the one to watch watch for Minnesota again on Thursday. I don’t know about Christian Darasaw being able to go. Let’s talk matchups to watch here for the Dallas Cowboys. First up is Dak Prescott against the Blitz because Minnesota is addicted to blitzing and in some ways a positive on that front for uh for Minnesota and and their defense. They blitz 49.2% of the time. That is the highest rate in the NFL. It is 8% higher than second place. It is the third highest blitz rate in the NextGen stats era, which I think is all Matt Iberlu’s defenses by the way. Dak against the Blitz though has been very good this year. 68.3% 7.7 yards per attempt. His EPA per play is very good. It’s plus 1.2. Uh he’s third in pressure to sack rate. He has been frankly outside of it’s really him and Drake May are the only quarterbacks with a thousand yards this year against pressure. Both of those guys, but Zach included have been really good when they’re under pressure. He will, I assume, be under pressure again. I’m curious how many actual blitzes Brian Flores does or if he does some uh sim pressures and only brings four and tries to confuse that Cowboys front. What is your confidence level in the Cowboys beating the Vikings? Scale it for me from one to 10. One on the low end, 10 on the high end. Let me know what your confidence level in the Cowboys beating the Vikings is. Let’s go to number two. That is Javvante Williams against the Vikings run defense. Javvante’s uh averaged 3.9 yards after contact. Actually the the fourth most in the NFL most of his career by the way. Vikings allow the 11th most yards after contact but are still 21st in yards per carry. The Vikings love to do all those exotic blitzes and show some funky stuff and you know have creativity with their with their pressure packages. Do you know a great way to get the Vikings out of that and kind of control it a little bit more? Run the ball down their throats. That is a great counter to to two high shell coverage and exotic look is to just be able to run the football. Number three match up to watch here. The Cowboys front on defense against the Vikings offensive line. That the Vikings offensive line has used 15 different offensive line combinations. That’s tied for the most in the NFL. The Cowboys have done some more threeman front stuff in recent weeks with Quinnon and Osa and Kenny Clark. In theory, Jade Devian Clowney is going to be back out there this year. Christian Darasaw is now hurt and I question if he’s going to be able to play at all. Like we mentioned, the Vikings offensive line is allowing a 36.6% pressure rate. 30 with that unit. 36.9 overall. It’s top 10 highest in the NFL. You got to be able to get after J.J. McCarthy. More on that in a minute. But first, today’s show is made possible by Bubs Naturals. Getting older isn’t fun and it can be a bit harder than you expect. You wake up with some stiff joints. The the back and the neck don’t feel the way they used to. Recovery from the gym takes longer. Maybe your hair is thinning out. Your nails are breaking easier. Whatever it is, a factor is that in your mid20s, your body naturally produces less collagen every single year. And that’s where Bub’s Naturals collagen peptides come in. They help restore collagen levels closer to what your body naturally had in its youth. That means stronger joints, healthier hair and nails, smoother skin, faster recovery. Collagen is the protein that holds everything together. It is the glue of your body. It is also Bub’s Naturals is NSF certified for sport. Third party tested, whole 30 approved and sustainably sourced. And it’s shipped by over 100,000 customers and was named best collagen of 2024 byealth.com. Live better longer. For a limited time only, our listeners are getting 20% off at Bubs Naturals by using code chat, chout. Just head to bubsnaturals.com and use code chat and you’re all set. After your purchase, they will ask you about where you heard about them. Support our show. Tell them the Cowboys report sent you. Number four, the Cowboys run defense against the Vikings run offense. What Minnesota at its core would like to do is have a healthy offensive line. They might not with Christian Darasaw and be able to run the football to make life easier on JJ McCarthy. They haven’t been able to do that. The last four games from the Cowboys run defense. They have improved. Now, there’s been some rough moments. Jir Gibbs had some big-time plays. Uh Kareem Hunt was actually very effective against them. The Eagles and the Raiders were not. Averaging 4.2 yards per carry allowed. The success rate there is 13th in the NFL. The EPA per play is actually 22nd. So it is a little, you know, big plays allowed sometimes. The Vikings will use both Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason. Aaron Jones has been very banged up this year. He will be involved in screens. He has always been a good screen guy. He has also been a Cowboy killer over the years. So I do worry about Aaron Jones having a big time game. He’s been banged up. He hasn’t been 100%. He will get plenty of work as will Jordan Mason. He gets a lot of work in the red zone by the way. Matchup number five and there’s a lot of things to discuss here. It’s the Cowboys pass defense. I guess matchup number nine perhaps Cowboys pass defense and JJ McCarthy. McCarthy has been bad this year. Um he has not had success. He has struggled. He he is just frankly been inaccurate. He hasn’t looked comfortable far too often. his footwork gets a mess. He will make, you know, one awesome throw and then miss four once he has to make. And it’s that it’s that inconsistency that has drove Vikings fans insane this year. Some notes from NextGen stats. McCarthy has thrown downfield 10 plus air yards at the second highest rate in the NFL this year, but is completing 41.3% of those attempts. That is the fifth lowest in the league. He has generated 8.3 yards per attempt on such throws. That is the third fewest with nine interceptions for nine. Go figure. Third most in the NFL. Against the blitz and not blitz when defenses have left it to not blitz mccarthyu this year and instead drop seven or more into a coverage. He complete pass at the lowest rate in the NFL at 56.6%. Averaging the second fewest yards per attempt ahead of only Dylan Gabriel. The EPA per play out of McCarthy against the blitz when verse when there’s no blitz is minus.4. 44 with the blitz and minus 2.4 with no blitz. Abrams doesn’t like blitzing. Either way, that would be a really good number. Uh it it is not a a promising situation right now for for JJ McCarthy. Number five player to watch here. We’ll go five to one. CD Lamb. Now, I do think he’s going to be good to go coming out of the concussion protocol. Was a full practice participant on Thursday. Like we mentioned, I want him to keep playing like he did before he got hurt following the Eagles game. I I I think that this is a from a yards per route run perspective outside of the oopsy drops which you can’t have obviously. Lamb’s actually been super good this year, super good. I think he’s in I think he’s primed for the big game even though I do think the Cowboys will try to get Pickkins going early if they are able. So, who scores the first touchdown for the Cowboys? Let me know in the comments section of today’s show who you think scores that first TD. Number four is Donovan Ezaraku, the edge. Christian Darasaw status very much uncertain. Justin School is not that great of a backup tackle option, assuming he is the guy who goes the I I almost wonder I hesitate to say it, but I do wonder if there’s been a little bit of a rookie wall that Ezrau has run into. He’s still been very good as a run defender, but a lot of those pressure stuff has gone down a little bit. He hasn’t been as good. In part, I think teams have kind of figured out, okay, that’s their best edge rusher right now. Might actually be Ezra Rock or the one that they’re most worried about. But he’s been a really good run defender. That stuff matters. I want to see if he can get back on on the sack train a little bit in this one. Now, we’ll be live for the Cowboys against the Vikings. Hit that sub button if you haven’t already. YouTube.com/cowboystv. Free Cowboys videos each and every single day right here on the channel. Number three is Don Bland, the quarterback. And I was looking through the the uh insights from NFL Pro, and it really was eyepopping. One of these numbers that we’ll get to here, or these numbers we’ll get to here about zone versus man, which certainly matched your eye test. So, Don Blland has not been good enough this year. Per uh NextG stats, 615 yards on fourthmost. That’s bad. In zone coverage, he is allowing a 70.6% 6% completion rate compared to man coverage 50%. Massive difference for a team that runs man at the or zone at the fifth highest rate in the NFL. Zone yards per target allowed is 9.6. That is the eighth most man among uh I think it’s 20 targets. Man yards per target is 5.3. That’s 11th fewest. So when you’re in zone, you’ve somehow managed turned a Ron Bland into a bottom 10 corner. When you’re in man, you turn him into a fringe top 10 corner. How? How? Like play to your team’s strengths. That goes for Diggs. That goes for Bland. That goes for Rebel. All these corners the Cowboys had, they took because they like their man coverage ability. So play them in man and suppress man. Stop asking for soft zone off man stuff. It clearly doesn’t work for your own personnel. So, should the Cowboys run more man coverage? Why for yes, N for know? It’s an obvious obvious yes. Let me know in the comment section of today’s show. Number two here is Terrence Steel. You know, I would expect Nate Thomas to start at one tackle spot. So, it might be pair of backup left tackles in this one. I need Terence Still to be better though. The the Vikings defensive front is is dangerous. They do a lot of fun stuff. They do a lot of butches. Grard is going to get pressures. Dallas Turner is coming along. Andrew Van Ginkle is good for one crazy play every other week. The don’t throw a screen at Van Ginkle. Do not do it. But Terrence Steel and Nate Thomas had bad games last time. They have to be better this week. Final player to watch. I’m cheating. It’s all of the linebackers on this team. Whatever that committee rotation looks like, they have to play well. JJ McCarthy will be inaccurate. He But he’s also mobile. They they will try to run to run the ball against you. Your linebackers have to show up. If they don’t show up, I don’t think you’re going to be in for a very good time on on Sunday. I I think your linebackers overshown in particular, but whether it’s Wilson, Murray, Leaf Foul, James, they they have to step up here.

Dallas Cowboys vs. Minnesota Vikings NFL Week 15 preview as Cowboys Report host Tom Downey breaks down the Cowboys injury report, top matchups and players to watch when the Cowboys host the Vikings on Sunday Night Football! The Vikings are on the verge of playoff elimination, but the Cowboys hopes are still alive if they keep winning. Cowboys injury news focuses on Jake Ferguson, Trevon Diggs and Jadeveon Clowney, who are all questionable. We’ve got the Cowboys vs. Vikings preview on today’s show!

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Agree or disagree with Cowboys Report host Tom Downey by commenting on today’s video:
– Most comments on today’s show gets a free raffle entry! Spam NINE
– Confidence level in the Cowboys beating the Vikings? Scale it: 1-10
– Who scores the first TD for the Cowboys?
– Should the Cowboys run more man? Type ‘Y’ for Yes, ‘N’ for No

Cowboys injury report and final designations:
– Tyler Guyton: Ankle | Out
– Malik Hooker: Personal | No designation, will play
– Jadeveon Clowney: Hamstring | Questionable
– Trevon Diggs: Knee | Out
– Jake Ferguson: Calf | Questionable
– CeeDee Lamb: Concussion | No designation, will play
– Hunter Luepke: Hip | No designation, will play
– Shavon Revel: Knee | No designation, will play
– Donovan Wilson: Knee | No designation, will play
– Hakeem Adeniji: Knee | No designation, will play

Minnesota Vikings injury report for those who have game status designations:
Christian Darrisaw: Knee | Questionable (was upgraded to limited on Friday, giving him a chance)
Ty Chandler: Knee | Questionable (on IR)
All others are off the injury report and will play

Cowboys vs. Vikings matchups to watch:
#1: Dak Prescott vs. the Blitz
#2: Javonte Williams vs. Vikings Run D
#3: Cowboys front vs. Vikings O-Line
#4: Cowboys run D vs. Vikings Run Offense
#5: Pass Defense vs. JJ McCarthy

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Cowboys players to watch on SNF:
#5: CeeDee Lamb (WR)
#4: Donovan Ezeriuaku (EDGE)
#3: DaRon Bland (CB)
#2: Terence Steele (OT)
#1: The Linebackers

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Cowboys vs. Vikings where to watch | NFL Week 15
Spread: Cowboys -6.5
Total (O/U): 58.5
Time / Date: 8:20p ET | Sunday, December 14th, 2025
Location: AT&T Stadium, Arlington, TX
TV: NBC

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Cowboys current defensive starters
DE: Jadeveon Clowney, Donovan Ezeriuaku
DT: Quinnen Williams, Osa Odighizuwa, Kenny Clark
LB: DeMarvion Overshown, Kenneth Murray/Logan Wilson
Secondary: Caelen Carson, Daron Bland, Reddy Steward/Shavon Revel, Malik Hooker, Donovan Wilson

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