Javonte Williams Camp Update — August 31: Three Backs Waived Behind Him

The Cowboys answered the backfield question by clearing it out. Sunday's cutdown waived Jaydon Blue, Phil Mafah and Israel Abanikanda, leaving Javonte Williams and Malik Davis as the kept halfbacks, per Nick Eatman at DallasCowboys.com. Davis won the second job on a preseason of 5.7 yards a carry, per Jerry Trotta at The Landry Hat, and Brian Schottenheimer's explanation of the Blue cut was about Davis rather than Blue: "It's not that Jaydon didn't do anything. It's that Malik Davis did things," per Grant Afseth at Dallas Sports Journal. Then on Monday, once waivers cleared, Dallas claimed Emari Demercado from Kansas City — a veteran who spent three seasons in Arizona before a one-year Chiefs deal in March, squeezed out after Kansas City signed Kenneth Walker III, and added, in Bleacher Report's words, to replace Blue, per Doric Sam. Abanikanda came back on the practice squad, per Trotta. Nothing reported frames Demercado as a threat to Williams' workload; he is a roster addition at the position, nothing more.

That cutdown corrects the episode we shipped a week ago. We watched Blue carry 15 times for 75 yards in Arizona and wrote that the room behind Williams looked livelier than it did a month before — that those carries were exactly how change-of-pace roles get argued into existence. Eight days later, Blue and Phil Mafah, who scored in that same game, were both waived. The one back from that night Dallas kept is Malik Davis, and the role we thought was being argued into existence went to him and to a waiver claim.

Williams' own week was silent, which answers the other half of last week's watch line: no accessed account of Friday's finale places him on the field, and nothing affirmatively reports him inactive. One loose end closed quietly — DJ Rogers, the tight end he tangled with at the Saints joint practice, per Randy Gurzi at Cowboys On SI, was waived injured at the cutdown, per Eatman, with no follow-up reporting.

Since June we have treated the workload as the sturdy part of Williams' profile — a three-year deal signed early, with the touches his to lose — while expecting last season's 11 touchdowns to come back to earth. Cut day strengthened the workload half; the regression half waits on games, as it always did. We'll see how the touches sort themselves once the real ones start.

_Data via nflverse._