IRVING, Texas - That's just an average cast Gerald Sensabaugh is wearing on his left hand, signed in pink marker by his kids, girlfriend and dogs.
It's what the cast is covering that is so important. The Cowboys have been without Sensabaugh for the last seven quarters after the strong safety broke his thumb early in the Broncos game. But with the digit feeling better every day, Sensabaugh is getting close to a return.
After practicing with the cast and a soft wrap Wednesday, Sensabaugh said he was "pretty sure" he would be able to play Sunday against the Falcons. His impending return comes not a moment too soon for the Cowboys.
"I think that, candidly, we need to be making plays at safety," owner Jerry Jones said Wednesday. "And Sensabaugh's injury didn't help us there, but he's back now."
With the starter gone in Week 4, Denver was able to mount a late comeback to beat the Cowboys. At least one of Kansas City's touchdown passes the next week, and quite possibly both of them, were the result of a missed play by the fill-in safety.
The Cowboys worked around Sensabaugh's absence as best they could, but they are lucky to have him back this week as Tony Gonzalez, maybe the best tight end in the history of the game, rolls into town. One of the strengths of Sensabaugh's game and a big reason why the Cowboys signed him was his ability to cover tight ends one-on-one.
A lot of times when an opposing offense has split its tight end out wide this year, the Cowboys have moved Sensabaugh away from the middle of the field to match up with him directly, trusting that the former Jacksonville Jaguar can keep them covered by himself. Against a great receiving threat like Gonzalez, it's not likely the Cowboys would leave Sensabaugh on an island every time, but he'll have to man up with the future Hall of Famer at some point.
So much for easing back into things after an injury.
"That'll be a fun one," Sensabaugh said. "He's real athletic, has good hands, he runs pretty good routes. He's pretty tall and he's able to use his body pretty well. I'll have to be prepared for that."
When Sensabaugh faced Gonzalez in the last game of the 2006 season he and the Jaguars secondary, coached then by Dave Campo, had a good bit of success. They held the tight end to just two catches for 21 yards and Sensabaugh had five tackles along with a forced fumble in the game.
Though the Cowboys will use a combination of coverages against Gonzalez on Sunday, a lot of the time he will be Sensabaugh's responsibility. Through five games so far this season opposing tight ends have caught 25 balls for 252 yards and three scores against the Cowboys, though no single tight end has had more than 58 yards against them.
And while the Cowboys haven't faced a tight end as good as Gonzalez, the first-year Falcon does have something to go on.
"My whole career I've always tried to look at when they played against maybe Kellen Winslow, and see what they did to him, because I know he's such a threat in the receiving game," Gonzalez said during a conference call Wednesday. "But even sometimes teams will switch it up. Earlier this year we played against New England and I didn't really anticipate getting bracket coverage as much as I was that game, and because of that I only had one catch."
The Cowboys held Winslow to four catches for 30 yards and one score in the season-opener. Gonzalez has had plenty of practice adapting to varied schemes over the years.
"It's always something," Gonzalez said of the different looks he gets. "That's something I've been used to my whole career and whatever they want to do hopefully we can adjust and move the ball down the field."
Wade Phillips said the Cowboys would try to double Gonzalez as often as they could. That would usually mean matching a linebacker up against him with help from Sensabaugh or Ken Hamlin, the kind of bracket coverage Gonzalez experienced in Atlanta's loss to the Patriots. To play it effectively, they need Sensabaugh to be able to perform at his best.
The week's first practice down, Sensabaugh thinks it's possible even with the cast, which he estimates he'll have to wear for another three weeks. Sensabaugh has already played hurt some this year. He came back from a bruised rib and cartilage damage against Tampa Bay to play in the home-opener the next week.
He did drop some balls while wearing the protection during Wednesday's practice, but later smiled and blamed the drops on the rainy weather passing through North Texas. Overall, the first trial of the cast was positive.
"It went a lot better than you would think," Sensabaugh said. "I tried to wrap up a couple times and it worked out pretty well, I would have been able to tackle the guy. I wanted to test that out to make sure I'd be able to wrap up, so I had some chances to do that today during practice and came out successful."
Sensabaugh has broken the same thumb before, in college, and come back to play while wearing a cast. Having worked through the injury previously, he has confidence there won't be any problems.
"It didn't slow me down any," Sensabaugh said. "I remember the wound wasn't actually quite healed up all the way in college so after the games and stuff there would be a little bit of blood in there where it kind of busted open, but it was never really a big problem with pain or anything."
Falcons coach Mike Smith, who was the Jaguars defensive coordinator when they drafted Sensabaugh out of North Carolina in 2005, said he's been keeping his eye on the injury status of his former player.
"Gerald is one of the toughest guys that I've coached," Smith said. "My experience coaching Gerald was you're going to basically have to cut a limb off to keep him off the field. We'll watch the injury report, but I know if there's any way possible, Gerald's going to be out there to compete."
That's good news for the Cowboys, who will need all the help they can get to stop Gonzalez and a tough Falcons offense, which includes a strong running game and a poised young quarterback who has shown a knack for making big plays down the field.
Wide receiver Roddy White may be Matt Ryan's best big play threat, but already he has developed a rapport with Gonzalez, who has a team-high 17 catches for first downs to go along with three TD catches. It's up to Sensabaugh and the Cowboys to keep those two from hooking up to move the chains so often.
"When you get a tight end that can get away from linebackers or safeties, it's just a hard matchup," Wade Phillips said. "They've been utilizing him really well, it hasn't taken very long for the quarterback to get on the same page with him. That makes it doubly difficult."
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