The Cowboys offense needs another problem like Charlie Sheen needs another overdose, but they've got one.
Felix Jones was in a protective boot Monday because of a dreaded high ankle sprain suffered in the loss to the Patriots. Todd Archer of ESPN Dallas reports that Jones could miss the next two-to-four weeks because of the injury, which seems right given how much time Orlando Scandrick missed with the same injury earlier this season.
There's never a good time to lose your starting tailback to an injury, but this is a particularly bad time for the Cowboys to lose Jones. Their offense is rudderless right now, lacking in both identity and confidence after the back-to-back blows of Tony Romo's meltdown against the Lions and Sunday's playcalling fueled loss to the Patriots. The team really needs to have everything at their disposal right now so that they can figure out how to move forward from the twin disappointments.
Beyond that, they need Jones to be getting as much work as possible right now. It's been lost a bit in all the Romomania, but Jones hasn't lived up to his status as the team's top running back. He looked great in the preseason, but his regular season work has been uneven, to put it kindly, and a setback of up to a month is the last thing he needs if he's going to make good on the promise that he's shown so often in his career.
And, finally, there's the Bill Nagy injury which leaves the offensive line to scramble itself into a new configuration once again. The Cowboys need to run the ball, but if they can't establish the ground game quickly with DeMarco Murray and Tashard Choice it is hard to see them sticking with it when they have weapons in the passing game.
That leads us to the one possible positive of Jones' injury. Jason Garrrett is going to need to put his faith in Romo again if the team is going to accomplish anything of significance the rest of the way. Maybe Jones' injury means that Garrett bites the bullet and hands the offense back over to Romo. It might not work out, for all the reasons you already know, but you can't win if you're scared of your quarterback.
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