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In not even 90 minutes, the New England Patriots will play their 11th game of the 2019 regular season, trying to improve their record to 10-1: the team will square off at home against the Dallas Cowboys who are entering today’s contest with a 6-4 record. Before getting ahead of ourselves, however, let’s take a look at the players on both sides who have been declared inactive and will therefore not participate in today’s contest:
Patriots inactives
WR Phillip Dorsett II
WR Mohamed Sanu
CB Jason McCourty
RB Damien Harris
OT Korey Cunningham
TE Ryan Izzo
QB Cody Kessler
While no players were ruled out by Patriots on Friday’s final injury report of the week, they did have a dozen players listed as questionable to play against the Cowboys. Of those 12 men, four have been declared out for today’s game: wide receivers Mohamed Sanu (ankle) and Phillip Dorsett (concussion), cornerback Jason McCourty (groin) and rookie running back Damien Harris (hamstring).
While Harris would likely have been inactive even when healthy, the other three players would have played considerable snaps. Sanu and Dorsett are top-four wide receivers in New England’s offense, which means that Julian Edelman and first-round rookie N’Keal Harry could see plenty of targets today — something that might also be true for the running backs and tight ends. McCourty, meanwhile, will likely be replaced in the lineup by J.C. Jackson who is having a good season so far.
The other players listed on the injury report this week will play: Tom Brady will start at quarterback despite an elbow injury to his throwing hand, while the aforementioned Edelman (shoulder) and Matthew Slater (hamstring) are also good to go. The same goes for starting right tackle Marcus Cannon (illness), linebackers John Simon (elbow) and Ja’Whaun Bentley (knee) and safeties Patrick Chung (heel/chest) — returning to the lineup after missing last week’s game — and Nate Ebner (ankle/back).
Cowboys inactives
LB Leighton Vander Esch
DE Joe Jackson
DT Trysten Hill
WR Devin Smith
WR Cedrick Wilson
DB Donovan Wilson
OL Brandon Knight
The biggest name on the Cowboys’ list of inactive players is linebacker Leighton Vander Esch, who was already ruled out on Friday because of a neck injury.