FRISCO, Texas – For Amari Cooper, it's a start.
Monday morning's practice wasn't a full workload for him, given that it was his first day back to practice since early August. But as he tries to assess how his injured foot feels, it's at least a jumping off point.
"I would say I didn't feel any pain today, but then again I didn't do everything I would do in a game today," Cooper said. "I would need the rest of the week to assess it."
Fortunately for Cooper, that's exactly what's going to happen. The Cowboys are off on Tuesday, and Cooper said it will be telling to see how he feels after putting stress on the foot at practice.
After that, there will be the three customary game week practices on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. If he's unclear about how he's feeling now, he should have a pretty good idea later on.
"It's just doing things that I haven't done in a while, as far as cutting, like I did today," he said.
Definitively diagnosing the injury has been tricky for most of the past month. Cooper is dealing with a foot muscle strain, although at times it's been called a heel bruise as well as plantar fasciitis.
Cooper said he thought the injury was plantar fasciitis at first, but this current strain doesn't hurt as badly as past issues he's had with plantar fasciitis.
"What I had before was worse than this, and I was able to play on that," he said. "The plantar fasciitis that I had before really kind of bothered me when I would directly the cut the foot that was hurting – but this one doesn't."
That sounds encouraging heading into Week 1, and it will be something to monitor when the team returns to practice later this week. Asked directly about Sunday's game against the Giants, Cooper didn't seem fazed.
"I think I'm good," he said.
