Cowboys Lose Star CB DaRon Bland to Foot Injury | GSMC Chip Shot Football Podcast

jumping straight back into all the football news on today's episode of the gsmc chip shout football podcast we're continuing to talk about the Dallas Cowboys in this week's episode today's episode now finishing talking about CD lamb and his contract extension great news for the Dallas Cowboys but now some unfortunate news on the other side of the ball for one of their defensive backs that would be Don Bland because last week in the preparation to their final preseason game no starters were really going to play it was really the Trey Lance show you know he played the entire game pretty much and you know is all about the backups and getting the necessary reps to make any final decisions on the final 53 man rosters that have to be finalized by tomorrow at 400 p.m. eastern time but in the leadup to that um one of their final practices before their Saturday game their All Pro defensive back donon Bland was feeling some discomfort in his foot on Wednesday during their practice and then afterwards he got more of an evaluation done on his foot and the scans and the examinations revealed that there was a stress fracture in Don Bland's foot which now means he will have to undergo surgery and he'll likely be out for the next 6 to8 weeks which is pretty crushing for the Dallas Cowboys just because of everything that was swirling around them if they didn't get that CD lamb extension done just today this would have looked a a lot worse um than in hindsight in totality obviously if um they still didn't have their wide receiver there and now their top one or top two Corner was going to be out for pretty much the first month and a half this would have almost been the worst case scenario for the Dallas Cowboys so fortunate for them they got it together and extended CD lamb but more on Don Bland based on his timeline and the 6 to eight weeks that he's projected to miss for the start of the regular season the first four weeks of the Season he will most likely miss if he is going to be out about 6 weeks at the earliest so in terms of the Cowboy schedule and the teams they'll be playing the first week one matchup it'll be against the Cleveland Brown so that one's going to hurt not having Don Bland out there you're going to have Trayvon Diggs obviously back but it would have helped a lot to have him there you know switching on and off with Amari Cooper not just having Amari MO over to the other side of the field and be away from one of your top corners that's the luxury you have obviously right with having Bland and Trayvon digs but now that could be a potential issue and also the Browns added Jerry Judy who is trying to rebuild and reestablish himself in uh in a new situation now moving on from the Denver Broncos so that'll be an interesting one not having Don Bland especially at Cleveland it should make it a bit tougher obviously against that defense not to mention as well um for the Dallas Cowboys and also week two they're going to be at home their home opener against the New Orleans Saints and it should be a little bit easier on paper but honestly I had so many questions about this Cowboys roster and just team and how it was going to look I honestly didn't think CD L would be back um I felt like the Cowboys were just going to keep stalling but that should be a win in week two uh in at home in Dallas against the New Orleans Saints and then you move move on to week three uh at home again against the Baltimore Ravens and you're hosting the AFC the current AFC uh conference conference appearance team they didn't win the conference Championship I almost said they did but they made it there at least um and coming off of the bat of last year how successful they were now another year for Z flowers another year for Lamar getting further in the playoffs not to mention they add Derrik Henry yeah they might not have wide receivers that you might technically not need to have a Don Bland or a Trayvon digs completely shut down but still this offense is very very explosive now with the combination of Lamar and Derrik Henry those guys more often than that are going to have to tackle one of these guys one of these Runners instead of covering so that going up against a high powerered Ravens offense should be a little bit more tricky but not as hard as having you know a number one a one B type of receiver on the opposite uh on the opposite sideline so that one could go either way I might still give it to the Ravens but either result wouldn't surprise me then the last one that Don Bland would for sure miss would be at the New York Giants and you know the Giants the Giants are the Giants right um in New York I can't remember the last time the Giants beat the Dallas Cowboys so that should be a win and if you go two and four um or ex yeah if you win two of the four games uh to start the year of those first four weeks if you split it that's not the end of the world technically I think that's as good as You' like to finish in those games if you win the Baltimore game um that's even better but um overall and even the Cleveland game that was not too impossible to win um but those are definitely the tougher ones they should win against the Saints and they should win against the Giants even without donon Bland but that's at the earliest EX expected return date for Don Bland because then he has a chance to return at Pittsburgh in their following game after the New York Giants but that's about 6 weeks so he could technically take longer and that's when it gets a little bit more difficult because at Pittsburgh is already going to be a little bit tougher than say the Giants and the Saints and around the same level of difficulty as the Cleveland Browns so to not have him there yeah the Steelers don't have again two Great Wide Receiver ones they only pretty much have W with George Pickins but it's still on the road you're still traveling across the country and those games could get a little bit tricky if you don't uh address the situation right from the start and then after that if donon bland is still trying to get back you know you don't want to rush him but he is getting closer and closer after Pittsburgh they have a home game against the Detroit Lions so that's a little bit better but you know you have to monitor how Don bland is looking and then they're going to travel to San Francisco and play the reigning NFC Conference champions in the 49ers and that's ideally you'd have you'd like to have him back for one of these games at least you know at Pittsburgh and then going on at the Lions and going on you don't want him to miss all three of those games because yeah he might be getting extra rest but all those games could worst case scenario go wrong the only one that I'm sure they're more favored in is against Pittsburgh and that's again on the road it could get a little bit tricky if you don't handle your business so those that's a tough stretch of games that you would like to run Bland to come back hopefully if he's able and you know talking more about Bland and what he actually brings if you haven't really been been keeping up with who he is and how big of an impact he made last year uh just going into his third season 25 years old now he led the NFL with nine interceptions last year and he said set a new NFL record with five pick sixes as well five of the nine interceptions he returned for um for touchdowns and that's 45 points if my math is correct on those touchdowns so those are huge those are huge because not only is the Dallas Cowboys offense you know really good but for those odd games where they're struggling they can't get anything going or the opposing defense is just that good and it's just a slugfest low-scoring game getting someone to change change the course the momentum just the entire Vibe around a game with a pick six or just an interception in general with nine last year it is huge and it's something that the Cowboys defense really thrived off of last year because they weren't so dominant in stopping the Run they weren't so dominant in stopping the pass per se big part of that is not having Trayvon Diggs obviously and then the Cowboys run defense has been a problem for the last few years but um those turnovers those turnovers really kill any sort of good feeling any sort of momentum that the opposing offense is starting to generate you know you almost feel like you almost feel like you have your backs against the wall you're almost backpedaling and you can't stop an opposing offense but just out of nowhere donon Bland comes out of nowhere jumps the pass or he reads it perfectly and gets an interception and that way it stops everything and it shocks the opposing offense that way and now if he starts building that reputation you know you are you're almost I don't I wouldn't say afraid but you're a little bit more cautious throwing it over to that side of the field because you know if you're a little bit late or if it's not placed in the right situation for your guy to get it or for it to just go out of bounds more often than not he's going to make a play on it and then that way you don't want to ruin the game if you're an opposing quarterback and throw him an interception right and not to mention that but the Cowboys were looking so forward to having that partnership with Bland and Trayvon digs on either side of the ball because similarly to Trayvon digs about two seasons ago you know they were almost in the same situation Trayvon Diggs picked off every ball it seemed like that came his way and now you had two of those guys being turnover machines it was going to be a lot of fun ideally for the Dallas Cowboys defense if they did lose a lot of guys you know just this off season they uh had Leighton Vander retired dorrence Armstrong went to the commanders Stefon Gilmore signed with the Minnesota Vikings Dante Fowler Jr also went to the the commanders as well you lost a lot of guys but you still had the opportunity the chance to change the entire course of a game by having guys like that in the secondary to to get interceptions and not even that just get pick sixes would have been great but you know now that's going to have to be put on hold for the foreseeable future um and we'll see we'll see how long Don Bland comes back and how much this Cowboys defense needs him because there's going to be a lot of new pieces I think they lost I'm trying to remember his name I don't want to mess it up I think it was Sam Williams their pass rusher that they lost to a Tor ACL earlier this off season so that sort of affected the pass rush you don't know who else is going to step up outside of Michel Parsons and who's going to be in at linebacker as well you have a new defensive coordinator coming in and while it's Mike Zimmer an established well-known name on that side of the allall it is you know a new group of players trying to adjust to a new system and you want to have all your best players there right that's why it was such a big deal when michah wasn't there but now you get him back but unfortunately you lose Duron Bland so um it's just another hurdle you know all teams deal with injuries like this a bunch of teams have had season ending injuries already to some of their most prominent players but um this Cowboys defense should be I I don't expect them to fall off of the face of the Earth but this does raise some more difficulty and it does put a little bit more stress on the offense to maybe know now that this defense might not be as locked down as it was before so the margin of error shrinks a little bit because you don't have that leeway knowing that you can just get a turnover know that your defense is going to stop them more pressure on the offense and an offensive side of the ball that has more questions I would even say than the defensive side of the ball so how they Ram ify that will be something to keep an eye on but for right now that is all the news we have on the Dallas Cowboys we're going to move on to some other topics on today's show when we come back after the break Mike Tomlin the head coach of the Steelers announces that he will make a final decision on his starting quarterback after this week of practice and later on we're going to dissect the quarterback performances from Drake May and jacobe brassette in their final preseason game last night we're going to get into all of that when we return after this break look at