Jaydon Blue Camp Update — August 31: Waived at the Cutdown
2026 NFL Season · Monday, Aug 31
Dallas waived Jaydon Blue at Sunday's cutdown, eight days after handing him fifteen carries in Arizona, and by Monday afternoon he appeared on no league-wide waiver-claim list and was not among the Cowboys' practice-squad signings. Brian Schottenheimer said the cut was about Malik Davis outplaying him rather than anything Blue did; The Landry Hat reports questions about Blue's football character, and nothing we accessed resolves the two.
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Eight days after Jaydon Blue carried 15 times for 75 yards in Arizona, Dallas waived him. He was named in the team's own cutdown accounting Sunday alongside Phil Mafah and Israel Abanikanda, per Nick Eatman at DallasCowboys.com. As of Monday afternoon, no team's claim of him appears on the league-wide waiver-claim list, per Doric Sam at Bleacher Report, and he is not among the 14 players Dallas signed to its practice squad, per Jerry Trotta at The Landry Hat. Abanikanda, waived beside him, came back on the practice squad. Blue did not.
Schottenheimer explained the cut on the record: "It's not that Jaydon didn't do anything. It's that Malik Davis did things," per Grant Afseth at Dallas Sports Journal — Davis won the second job on a 5.7 yards-a-carry preseason, per Trotta. Asked whether Blue and Mafah had been given practice-squad assurances, Schottenheimer said, "We said to both those guys that we're not sure that it would go that direction. And that's as honest as I could be with them," again per Afseth. Trotta reports a different framing: unspecified questions about Blue's football character. Two sources, two readings, and nothing accessed resolves them — the ball-security question that has followed Blue since Texas appears in neither, and Afseth's piece does not raise it at all. Dallas then filled the spot from outside, claiming veteran back Emari Demercado off waivers from Kansas City — added, in Bleacher Report's words, to replace Blue.
A week ago we ended Blue's episode on a trust inference: a staff that did not trust him would not hand him 15 carries in his first game back from an injury week. That inference was wrong, and the way it was wrong matters — the 15 carries were a look, not a decision, taken while Malik Davis was winning the job. The June frame holds up better than the August one: we wrote Blue's value as opportunity multiplied by trust, with the change-of-pace lane behind Javonte Williams open and the trust the missing part. The lane was real. The trust never arrived, and the lane was filled from outside the building within days. Last week's watch line asked whether passing-down reps would show up near the first team once the season's roster took shape; there is no Dallas roster for them to show up on.
Where he lands next is not something the reporting supports guessing at — Schottenheimer's "I'm sure he's going to land on his feet" is a coach's well-wish, not a report. We'll pick the thread back up if a team gives us a reason to.
_Data via nflverse._
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