Cowboys’ Darren McFadden to miss a couple months with elbow injury

Dallas Cowboys running back Darren McFadden will miss at least a couple months with an elbow injury according to head coach Jason Garrett.

Dallas Cowboys running back Darren McFadden appeared to be over his past bad injury luck after two mostly healthy seasons with the Oakland Raiders and Cowboys respectively, but the oft-criticized McFadden will be back on the shelf for at least a couple of months. A surgery for an elbow injury suffered this offseason is sidelining the veteran runner as he is in the midst of a competition for the starting running back job with 2016 first-round pick Ezekiel Elliott.

Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett told the media on Tuesday that McFadden will be out for a couple of months following the running back’s surgery, giving a vague timetable, but indicating that the hope is to have DMC back in action for Week 1 of the 2016 season. This makes it unlikely that McFadden will be able to participate in the rest of the offseason program and the preseason in August.

After years of injury-plagued seasons, McFadden played in all 16 games for each of his last two seasons, making the news that he will be out for training camp a sad note surrounding a player who has worked hard to stay healthy, especially when you consider that the 28-year-old McFadden needed to have a strong offseason to earn carries with the young Elliott waiting in the wings to take the feature back role in Dallas.

With McFadden coming off of his first 1,000-yard season since 2010, expect Garrett and the Cowboys to give DMC his touches when he returns regardless if he is able to get into the preseason schedule or not.

After carrying the workload for the Cowboys last year in replacing DeMarco Murray, McFadden has earned the respect of the coaches in Dallas, so don’t expect the veteran to worry much about his spot in the offense even if his injury means that Elliott will likely jump up to RB1 by default.

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