FRISCO, Texas — One week ago, Trevon Diggs was only a couple days ahead of being notified by head coach Brian Schottenheimer that, for the first time since his rookie season, the Dallas Cowboys' franchise cornerback would not take the field as a starter when the team hosted the Green Bay Packers in primetime.
The return of DaRon Bland saw him moved from nickel corner back to the outside, opposite Kaiir Elam, the latter getting the nod over Diggs for the first two defensive series, but why?
Granted, Diggs nursed a couple of injuries the past two weeks, but that's not the reason for Schottenheimer's decision — as it turns out.
"A rough week," said the All-Pro cornerback.
Diggs took full accountability and credited Schottenheimer for sitting him down, both before and to begin the game, going on to make it clear he's as focused now as he's ever been.
"I guess coach was holding me accountable, and I accept it," Diggs explained. "It's cool. [I'm] back on track this week and ready to work. Just a rough week."
Does that mean he'll return to his starting role when the Cowboys visit the New York Jets?
"Yeah," he said, and definitively.
Diggs and the struggling secondary in Dallas at least saw some sort of improvement against the Packers, particularly in not allowing them to blow the game open with a laundry list of explosive plays, as both the New York Giants and Chicago Bears did in the previous two outings, and though there is still much to improve upon as a unit, it's not hard to tell why they at least took one step forward last week.
After deploying zone coverage on nearly, literally, one hundred percent of the defensive dropbacks over the previous three games, defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus dropped that number to 87 percent against the Packers — the 13 percent increase in man coverage lending to the very noticeable smile Diggs was wearing when asked about it.
But while he prefers man coverage, the two-time Pro Bowler and former NFL interceptions leader also admits there's a time when everyone needs to "get comfortable being uncomfortable", and that his preference should not override that of the coordinator.
"I mean, yeah, we talk but, at the end of the day, it's not about what I want," Diggs said. "It's not about what the other people want. It's about what the whole defense wants — what coach wants, what coach thinks is best for us to win. And if he feels like this gives us our best chance to win then you know, we've gotta play it and just play it to the best of our ability.
"The point is it ain't nobody's fault. We've just gotta execute."
That includes finding a way to intercept the ball, something they've done only once through 18 sessions of football.
Up next comes yet another mobile quarterback that can extend plays while also looking to make chunk plays downfield, and execution will be key, as will communication in the secondary; and those are still two things hanging around the collective neck of the Cowboys' defense like two albatrosses to this point in the season.
The hope is that the Cowboys learned a hearty lesson from the then-winless Bears, in that a desperate team will seek to use Dallas as a chance to right their ship, and the Jets could also empty the playbook to try and have the success Chicago did in their upset of Dallas.
"Yeah, I feel like they'll come out with trick plays and try to give us their best shot early, and take shots [downfield]," Diggs said. "It's just that when the ball is in the air, we've gotta capitalize. regardless of whatever. Whatever we need to do, when the ball is in the air, we've gotta capitalize."
