Brandon George at the Dallas Morning News has reported that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones expects Marion Barber to be healthy enough to play Sunday at Denver.
Barber, of course, went down on a twenty yard run during the team's 33-31 loss to New York in the opener of Cowboys Stadium, with a quadriceps injury. He missed Monday night's win over Carolina, though head coach Wade Phillips remarked afterwards that he had been "close."
The timing couldn't be better, if Barber does, in fact, come back for Sunday afternoon's match-up with the 3-0 Broncos; Felix Jones will, in all likelihood, be on the shelf after suffering a sprained PCL during the victory Monday night.
Dallas signed former Jaguar and USC product Chauncey Washington to the practice squad in early September--a sort of precautionary measure--and Jerry said there's a chance he could be activated for Sunday.
Barber will start on Sunday, Jones said in the initial report, if he looks "really strong."
"He did more [Wednesday] than we thought and will have expectations," Jones said of Barber in the DMN. "I would like to reserve that [decision] to after practice, but I bet he's pretty aggressive out here in practice, listening to how he responded [Wednesday] and listening to these trainers. I'm glad he's looking as good as he did. I think we made the right decision last week [not playing Barber against Carolina]."
The combination of Barber, Jones, and Tashard Choice have Dallas at the top of the league with respect to rushing, combining to average 197.3 yards per game, through three games.
