IRVING, Texas – The Cowboys have lost another key player for the season.
Brian Waters will be placed on injured reserve and will be out the rest of the year with a triceps injury he suffered in Sunday's loss to the Lions.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones announced the news on his weekly radio show 105.3 "The Fan" Tuesday morning.
Waters sustained three different injuries in the game – an hyper-extended knee, a rib injury and the triceps tear.
Mackenzy Bernadeau replaced Waters in the second half Sunday and will step in and start.
"We've got Bernadeau that started for us last year and played well (Sunday)," Jones said. "That's the way we will go. We'll look to what we do with depth off our practice squad."
That likely means David Arkin will be re-signed. Arkin was waived Saturday to make room for safety Jakar Hamilton, but was added to the practice squad Monday.
The Cowboys will certainly miss Waters, who played in seven of the eight games this year after he signed just before the start of the season. Over the last few weeks, he's been making the line calls before the snap at the right guard position. [embedded_ad]
"He's done a lot, maybe as much as anything else, it's his demeanor," head coach Jason Garrett said of Waters. "He's a guy that plays the game the right way, he's physical, he's tough he knows what to do, he plays with a little bit of an edge to him and that's a positive thing and I've talked to our team about it, it's contiguous. You get a guy like that who can do it again and again and again, always kinda making an impression trying to break their will. And other guys see that it's OK and it's a good thing to do, it's good for your team, he's good for the offensive line and he's good for everybody on our team. He's had a real positive influence."
Waters, an 11-year veteran and six-time Pro Bowler, actually started his career in Dallas. He was a rookie free agent with the Cowboys in 1999 as a fullback/tight end. He was released and later picked up by the Chiefs, who developed him as a guard and one of the best in the game.
But with Waters out, the Cowboys can only hope that experience trickles down to Bernadeau and the rest of the backups.
"Hopefully he's been positively influenced by watching Brian play and just learn from that experience as well," Garrett said of Bernadeau. "He's played a lot of snaps for us and as you know he's been banged up for the last couple of years and he's played a ton of football for us last year and a lot of football early for us. So hopefully he'll be ready to go and did a nice job getting his first snaps back in there."
