ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Trevon Diggs took a detour to his family's field-level suite instead of going straight to the locker room at halftime in the Dallas Cowboys cornerback's first game in two months.
Diggs said he just wanted to see his daughter, not that he was trying to savor what might have been the final home game of a Cowboys career that has gone sideways.
The 2021 All-Pro did acknowledge that potential reality after the 34-17 loss to the Los
Angeles Chargers in the home finale. Dallas, eliminated from playoff contention, plays its final two games on the road.
“It's tough,” Diggs said in one of several answers that was about that short.
Diggs' long absence was triggered by a concussion that he said he sustained in an accident at home. It lingered over what the team said was an issue with his knees. His left knee has been surgically repaired twice in the past two years.
The team and its 2020 second-round draft pick never went into detail about what happened at his house. Diggs did address it in the locker room after the game, saying a TV mounting pole that was attached to a ceiling hit him in the head.
“I was trying to be a handyman,” Diggs said. “I shouldn’t have been.”
Diggs played the first six games before the concussion, and the eight-game absence put him at 29 missed games since the start of 2023. Since leading the NFL with 11 interceptions in 2021, Diggs has five in 37 games over four seasons.
First-year coach Brian Schottenheimer was never specific about why it took the Cowboys so long to activate Diggs off injured reserve. He said the team needed to see more consistency in practice. Owner Jerry Jones insisted Diggs' knees weren't healthy enough for him to play.
The in-season drama came after the club withheld an offseason workout bonus in his contract because Diggs chose to rehab from his second knee surgery with his own athletic training staff. Schottenheimer also benched him briefly early in the season after an unspecified disciplinary issue.
Had Dallas not activated Diggs the day before playing the Chargers, his season would have been over. He is a prime candidate to be released in the offseason in a cost-cutting move, three years after he signed a $97 million extension.
LA's Justin Herbert completed a season-high 79% of his passes, going 23 of 29 for 300 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. Diggs had six tackles, but didn't have a pass breakup as a beleaguered secondary finished with just two.
“Without looking at it, I wouldn’t know when he was in or out of coverage, but I thought he played with a lot of awareness,” Jones said. “That's a good quarterback out there. So, basically, from what I can see, and it’s real hard to tell sometimes when it looks like that you didn’t do a good job covering. But still, I was glad to see him back out there.”
Diggs, who returned sooner than expected from offseason knee surgery and made it back for the opener, played in the first six games before getting the concussion. Diggs hasn't offered details on how the concussion happened.
Diggs' return could have something to do with the season-ending move to IR for cornerback DaRon Bland, who may need his second surgery in two seasons for a troublesome left foot.
Last year's surgery just before the start of the season was for a stress fracture and sidelined Bland for 10 games. Bland set an NFL record with five interception returns for touchdowns in 2023, when he also led the NFL with nine picks.
The Cowboys signed Diggs to a $97 million extension in 2023, two years after he led the league with 11 interceptions. It was the most in the NFL since Everson Walls had 11 as a rookie for Dallas in 1981.
Bland signed a $92 million extension in August. By the end of this season, he will have missed 15 of the past 34 games, with just one interception since collecting 14 over his first two seasons.
There's no question Bland will be back in 2026. There's a big question whether Diggs will still be his teammate.
“After the season, I guess we’ll figure it out,” Diggs said.
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