Team news: Dallas Cowboys | Page 71

Jerry Jones did everyone the favor of ruling Tony Romo out well before the Cowboys traveled to Cleveland last week. Don’t expect the same courtesy this time around.

Fresh off his team’s 35-10 beating of the Browns, the Cowboys’ owner/general manager held his customary interview session with reporters. But when questions turned toward the familiar subject of Romo’s availability, Jones was much more evasive than he was a week ago.

“Unlike last week, I wouldn’t speculate,” he said through a smile.

Related players: Dak Prescott

There wasn't a lot of specifics about Romo as you might imagine, other than he's getting stronger. But it's interesting he's preparing for an increased workload. It's hard to imagine the team going back to Romo after Prescott's great start.

Michael Thomas played 61 of 76 snaps (80 percent) in Sunday's 25-20 win over the Seahawks. It was just the second time this season Thomas led the wide receivers in snaps, also doing so in Week 4 in San Diego, and his 63 yards were a team high, marking the second straight week he led the team in receiving yards.

Related players: Brandin Cooks, Willie Snead

Snead played 74 percent and Cooks 50 percent. It was Thomas who led team in receiving yards as well, catching six passes for 63 yards against the Seahawks.

To be fair, Saints WR Brandin Cooks often was shadowed by two of the NFL's top young cornerbacks -- the Atlanta Falcons’ Desmond Trufant and the San Diego Chargers’ Jason Verrett -- in those two quiet games before breaking out last week. Cooks also received extra attention from deep safeties.

But because of Cooks’ blazing speed (a 4.33-second 40-yard dash at the NFL scouting combine), there is probably a temptation for the Saints to use the 5-foot-10, 189-pounder on deep routes most of the time, even if he is just clearing out No. 1 cornerbacks and safeties.

Cooks, a first-round draft pick in 2014, repeated Monday what he has stressed many times -- that he doesn’t want to get pigeonholed as “a guy that’s just considered a deep-ball threat and that’s it.”

Cooks said Monday that he really liked the Saints’ game plan in Sunday’s 41-38 victory over the Carolina Panthers, in which he caught seven passes for a career-high 173 yards and an 87-yard touchdown. In those two prior games, he had just five catches for 44 yards.

No, do not look for Tony Romo to play Oct. 30 against the Philadelphia Eagles. He has picked up his conditioning and throwing in the last couple of weeks, but his first game back looks like Nov. 6 against the Cleveland Browns.

If the Cowboys had put Romo on injured reserve at the start of the season, that would have been the first game he could have played. The Cowboys are off next week and have only one practice, and it's not really a practice before the players scatter for the bye week. They return to practice full time Oct. 24, so Romo would have four days to get ready for the Eagles. The more QB Dak Prescott wins, the more the Cowboys and Romo can be patient with his comeback.

The author said Romo's return will not be about his health. It will be about the circumstance of the team. How the team is playing through Oct. 30 will likely determine Romo's return, the story went on to say.

According reports from ESPN and NFL Network, the Cowboys are targeting Week 8 for Tony Romo's return to the lineup.

Of course, rookie fourth-rounder Dak Prescott has exceeded every expectation imaginable, not only leading the Cowboys to a 3-1 start, but he's done it while completing 68 percent of his passes without a single turnover.

But Prescott's emergence doesn't change the Romo timetable, at least as far as owner and general manager Jerry Jones is concerned, the story said. Jones maintains that Romo gives the team the best chance to win, according to ESPN's Chris Mortensen's latest report.