The Cowboys were dealt a major blow on Thursday when All-Pro cornerback Trevon Diggs was lost for the rest of the season after suffering a torn ACL in practice.
Dallas will move forward with the players they have in-house to replace Diggs, and while owner and general manager Jerry Jones likes the depth the team has at the cornerback spot, he knows that it's impossible to replace what Diggs brought on the field.
"You can't do that. That's just not real. That's like saying, 'I want to be Tom Cruise.' You don't replace these irreplaceable players," Jones said Friday on the 'K&C Masterpiece' on 105.3 The Fan when asked if the team would look outside the organization for help replacing Diggs.
“The facts are that we do have depth. We don’t have depth with somebody with his unique abilities, but we’ve got depth relative to playing the position.”
The team's cornerback depth includes 2022 fifth-round pick DaRon Bland, who will move from the slot to Diggs' spot at outside corner opposite All-Pro Stephon Gilmore. Dallas also has Jourdan Lewis, who will step into Bland's role in the slot, Noah Igbinoghene, and safety/corner Israel Mukuamu.
Jones suggested that a combination of Bland and Lewis could "mitigate" the loss of Diggs by playing less risk-reward, the style of play that turned Diggs into an interception machine in his first four seasons in the NFL.
“I don't want to take anything away from his outstanding ability to make a turnover, which is the most important thing you can do in a game as a defensive player. But with that comes a little bit more risk. That was always his challenge, and boy has he become great at diminishing the downside of his style of play. Give credit to Dan Quinn and his teammates because they play to his ability to make those turnovers and play to what you give up when you try and make some of those plays, and you can give up (some big plays)," Jones said. "The people we have replacing him will probably have less risk. But again, that was his challenge, and boy he gained on it tremendously. That’s what makes him such a great player.
"But Bland and (the others) that we have come in here may not have as much of a concern about the bad play. And so, we could have a plus here, not a real plus, but we could mitigate how bad a loss this is by that."