Cowboys’ Rob Jones suffers broken neck bone in brutal injury

The Cowboys just got thinner on the offensive line.

Offensive guard Rob Jones suffered a broken bone in his neck during Sunday’s training camp session and will now miss two to three months.

Jones joined the Cowboys on a one-year, $3.75 million contract this offseason after longtime starting guard Zack Martin retired.

Dallas also selected guard Tyler Booker out of Alabama with the 12th overall draft pick in April, yet Jones had been taking first-team snaps over the weekend after Booker was initially with the starters.

“Tyler’s kind of hitting that mark where he’s a little bit like, ‘Whoa.’ Doing some good things, but doing some things that weren’t to the standard,” Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer said before Sunday’s practice about moving Jones into the starters and Booker to the second unit. “So what do you do? You make a change. Is it permanent? I don’t know.”

With the draft stock invested into Booker, it was likely that he would wind up as the starter eventually, but Jones’ presence pushing and mentoring Booker while also being a solid option of his own will now surely be missed.

“Rob Jones has been doing some really, really good things,” Schottenheimer said before Jones’ injury.

ESPN reported that Jones’ neck issue came late in practice on Sunday, yet he still spent time after the session to do some extra work coaching up Booker.

Jones is entering his fifth season in the NFL. 

He joined the Dolphins as an undrafted free agent in 2021 after spending two seasons at Middle Tennessee State and two at Highland Community College in Kansas.

In his four seasons with Miami, Jones played in 49 games and started in 30 of them. Last season, he was a pillar of consistency as he started in all 17 of the Dolphins’ games.

Jones will not require surgery to heal the broken bone in his neck.