IRVING, Texas – Hamstrings are, unsurprisingly at this point, once again an issue at Valley Ranch.
Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said Wednesday morning that both Dwayne Harris and Bruce Carter are being evaluated for hamstring injuries after Monday night's loss to Chicago. Harris re-aggravated the same hamstring injury he suffered against New York on Nov. 24 and is day-to-day.
Carter became the latest on what is now a long list of Cowboys who have been hampered by hamstring this season.
"We'll see what he does over the next couple days – see if he's able to move around and get himself ready to go," Garrett said.
The continued problem with hamstrings has stretched across the roster this year. Sean Lee, Justin Durant, Morris Claiborne, Miles Austin, Barry Church, Gavin Escobar, Lance Dunbar, Dez Bryant, Danny McCray, Harris and now Carter have all dealt with the issue at one point or another this season.
"We've had too many of them, there's no question about that," Garrett said. "They happen all around the league, I get that, but we've got to keep doing our part in our evaluations to how we can eliminate them as best we can."
Those evaluations haven't turned up any conclusive problems, though Garrett said the Cowboys need to keep an eye on the amount of running players do during the week. He also said players need to monitor their own habits and make sure they're preparing properly during games.
"Sometimes it has to do with work load – how much running we're doing. You do look at how we're warming up and all those things," he said. "Some of it is on the player to make sure they continue to warm up and stay fresh over the course of the game, depending on what their circumstances are." [embedded_ad]
He added: "I don't know that there's anything you can pin point and say 'This is the reason.' If there was, we certainly would have gotten it cleaned up a long time ago."
The Cowboys have charted hamstring problems across the league to determine if there's any way they can improve on preventing them. Although the issue is an unfortunate one, Garrett said it's a problem familiar to every team in the NFL.
"I think it's relatively consistent around the league. You see these things come up, they're on a lot of injury reports around the league," he said. "But again, we're focused on what we can do as a staff to make sure we eliminate them as best we can."
