Cornerback Trevon Diggs received medical clearance on Tuesday to return to practice after starting Dallas Cowboys’ training camp on the physically-unable-to-perform list last week.
Two games into the 2023 season, Diggs tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee at practice on Sept. 21 and missed the remainder of the campaign.
“Smartly,” Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said when asked on Tuesday how he anticipated working the former Alabama defensive back into Dallas’ training-camp routine in Oxnard, California.
“This biggest thing is for him to stay on his rehab program with (trainer) Britt (Brown),” McCarthy said, “but to get him into the jog-throughs and the teaching drills is the first step, and then we’ll see how we progress into the individual. …
“No one wants to sit in the classroom all day and then go out and watch his brothers compete. He definitely misses it, and I know he’ll be excited to be out there.”
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Diggs joined the Cowboys from the Crimson Tide in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft.
In 2021, Diggs earned first-team All-Pro recognition as he intercepted 11 passes, the most in one season in the NFL in 40 years.
After Diggs reached the Pro Bowl again in 2022 and with the cornerback entering the final season of his rookie contract in 2023, the Cowboys signed him in July 2023 to a five-year, $97 million contract extension.
“He’s such a playmaker,” McCarthy said about what Dallas missed without Diggs on the field in 2023. “Obviously, his ability to go get the football, get his hands on the football, his challenge of the receiver, the matchups, we missed all of that. We missed all of his game. Where he is in his career, I think his value speaks for itself with both the contract and the way his teammates – just think about that day. That was a bad day for everybody when he went down.”
Dallas starts its three-game preseason schedule on Aug. 11 against the Los Angeles Rams and kicks off its regular-season slate on Sept. 8 against the Cleveland Browns.