ARLINGTON, Texas -- The Dallas Cowboys suffered a huge loss before the 2024 regular season even began on Saturday with 2023 First-Team All-Pro cornerback DaRon Bland set to miss the next 6-8 weeks of action with a stress fracture in his foot, the team announced.
In the statement, the team wrote Bland "experienced foot discomfort" last week at training camp in Oxnard, California, and underwent imaging to diagnose the severity of his malady. The testing revealed the 25-year-old has a stress fracture, and he will undergo surgery to fix the injury.
Dallas was set to have both Bland -- the 2023 NFL interceptions leader (nine) and NFL single-season pick-six record holder (five) -- and cornerback Trevon Diggs -- a two-time Pro Bowler who led the NFL in interceptions (11) in 2021 -- on the field together for a full season for the first time since 2022. Diggs suffered a torn ACL in practice prior to Dallas' Week 3 game at the Arizona Cardinals last season.
Now, Dallas will be asking a lot more out of 2024 fifth-round pick cornerback Caelen Carson out of Wake Forest. Cowboys three-time All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons liked what he saw out of the 22-year-old in training camp.
"I think Carson, he flashed a lot," Parsons said on Wednesday at training camp. "They realized that pretty early, and now he's not playing the preseason games so he can kind of see where he's going in his direction, in his career. He's going to play a lot. We have a great group there. We had a lot of injuries the last two years, and now we have some depth at the [cornerback] position, which is really good."
The depth Parsons referenced a few days ago is now noticeably more thin with Bland on the shelf for the first month or more of the 2024 regular season.
