It might be asking a bit much for Brian Schottenheimer to tinker with the wide receiver rotation now that CeeDee Lamb's status is up in the air. The Dallas Cowboys are still working to determine a timeline for Lamb, who suffered a high-ankle sprain in Sunday's loss to the Bears.
Lamb is hopeful that he can play in Week 4. While his injury isn't as serious as it looked in real time, he's expected to miss 2-4 weeks. One domino effect of Lamb being injured is that it vaults Jalen Tolbert into a prominent role.
While Tolbert had some nice grabs in the defeat, he was ultimately at fault for Javonte Williams' backbreaking first-quarter fumble. The replay on FOX showed Tolbert abandoning his block of Tyrique Stevenson. This allowed Stevenson to sprint forward and rip the ball away from Williams, who unfortunately does not have eyes in the back of his head.
Cowboys need to reconsider Jalen Tolbert's playing time once and for all
It was an incredible hustle play from Stevenson, who displayed great footwork to get both feet down before momentum took him out of bounds.
However, it should never have come to that. Tolbert did the bare minimum on the play, impeding Stevenson for a split-second initially to allow Williams to break free up the sideline.
It's not asking much for a receiver to finish a block, especially for someone like Tolbert, who should be giving maximum effort on every snap to move up the depth chart. It admittedly wouldn't have been easy to keep blocking Stevenson down the field, but someone like Ryan Flournoy absolutely would've done so.
RELATED: CeeDee Lamb injury update has Cowboys fans furious with Brian Schottenheimer
To make matters worse, Tolbert turned around and jogged back to the sideline after Williams went flying out of bounds. Where is the urgency to help your teammate back up on his feet? Make no mistake: that is not a Brian Schottenheimer cultural problem - it's a Tolbert issue.
Tolbert drew the ire of Cowboys fans in Week 1 when he left KaVontae Turpin out to dry on a quick pass out of the backfield. The 26-year-old didn't bother to block for his teammate and just watched as Turpin was gang-tackled by a cavalcade of Eagles defenders.
That's two Tolbert lowlights in three games that went viral for a lack of effort. He's likely to see the field even more now that Lamb is on the shelf, but he shouldn't have more snaps than Flournoy. The continued laziness has to have some form of repercussion.