FRISCO — It was Friday afternoon when cornerback Trevon Diggs told a pair of reporters he wasn’t sure about his playing status for Sunday’s game between the Cowboys and the Chargers.
Roughly 90 minutes before that conversation, Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer said Diggs was practicing with joy and doing the things necessary to get himself on the field.
Diggs’ availability is a nearly daily conversation with reporters for Schottenheimer and the front office.
Saturday afternoon, we found the answer about Diggs’ playing status.
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The Cowboys moved Diggs off injured reserve to the active roster and placed the other starter, DaRon Bland, on injured reserve. Bland moving to IR ends his season, where he’s headed for surgery to repair his left foot.
As for Diggs, we assume he’ll start against the Chargers on Sunday.
Diggs playing in Sunday’s home finale comes as somewhat of a surprise because it’s risky. Diggs has undergone knee surgeries in the last two seasons. This offseason, team officials were irked by Diggs’ inability to rehab in a way that pleases them. The club docked Diggs $500,000 from his base salary for his failure to rehab more at The Star, instead of doing it in Florida. Diggs pushed the club to let him play in the season opener, showing them he was ready.
Diggs should have waited.
While he felt good, he needed more time to rehab. He encountered knee soreness, which prompted the club to place him on injured reserve on Oct. 25.
The club opened his 21-day practice window on Nov. 30 and had until Saturday to activate him or let him miss the rest of the 2025 season.
The injury to Bland is part of the reason why Diggs is playing on Sunday.
But there are other factors surrounding Diggs. His displeasure with the defensive scheme employed by defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus is something that’s been addressed numerous times. Diggs wants to play more man-to-man, while Eberflus’ scheme is more zone-centric. Eberflus isn’t opposed to playing man, it’s just that he believes in what he believes in.
Diggs, however, a talented corner, and the best one on this team, believes in what he thinks, too. He also needs to play more fundamentally sound within whatever scheme he plays in.
So getting through that aspect of it and the health component is something the team had to deal with this season.
It would be wise for the team to just move on from Diggs. It seemed as if they were headed that way during Diggs’ 21-day return to practice stint.
What seemed like the end was last week. Before a game against Minnesota, Diggs said he was healthy enough to play and expected to do so, especially after getting reps with the first-team defense.
He didn’t play.
Jerry Jones said after the loss to the Vikings that Diggs wasn’t healthy enough. Diggs disputed that.
It just seemed as if this was another mess the Cowboys could do without.
The biggest problem with playing Diggs now is the possibility of him getting hurt again. If that happens, considering how his past rehab sessions went, the Cowboys would be on the hook to rehab him again in the offseason.
If Diggs got hurt again, the team would need to reach an injury settlement with him over rehab.
He’s not owed any more guaranteed money but has a base salary of $14.5 million next year. So you figure out the cost.
The Cowboys could have bypassed Diggs and just moved Josh Butler (Reserve/PUP) to the 53-man roster.
Dallas would have played with Butler, Shavon Revel, Caelen Carson, Reddy Steward and Trikweze Bridges against the Chargers, a team that’s won six of their last seven and are on the verge of clinching a playoff berth.
Good luck with that.
Of course, you want Diggs to come out of all this healthy. The risks are there, however, in playing him.
And no team should be scared to utilize its players in a physically demanding sport.
So the Cowboys are playing Diggs, their most talented corner, where he can show the Cowboys and maybe other teams he’s still a playmaker. He’s been to two Pro Bowls and named to an All-Pro team. In 2021, Diggs led the NFL with 11 interceptions. Over the next four seasons, he’s got just six and none in the six games he has played this season.
Come Sunday, the return of Diggs to the playing field finally arrives. It’s his first game since Oct. 12 at Carolina. The talent the Cowboys loved when they drafted him in the second round in 2020 will be on display.
Delayed. But Finally.
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