Zack Martin receives the perfect compliment from Cowboys HC Mike McCarthy following season-ending injury news
Dallas Cowboys right guard Zack Martin is out for the season, head coach Mike McCarthy announced Thursday.Any other year, the news would've been painful to hear. Losing a fan favorite and a surefire future Hall of Famer is always tough to lose. But the news hits even harder this year, as this could very well […]
Dallas Cowboys right guard Zack Martin is out for the season, head coach Mike McCarthy announced Thursday.
Any other year, the news would've been painful to hear. Losing a fan favorite and a surefire future Hall of Famer is always tough to lose. But the news hits even harder this year, as this could very well be the last season of football for Martin, who admitted to considering retiring after the season in training camp.
Martin, who had been dealing with multiple ankle injuries, was expected to return for this week's matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals, McCarthy revealed. Instead, a setback is sending him to Injured Reserve, and there's a strong chance we've seen the last from the 2014 first-round draft pick.
"In my conversations with him, his focus is on getting the surgery and trying to do the best he can with his ankle, because obviously this is the third surgery he will have on that ankle," McCarthy told reporters.
The Cowboys head coach went on to discuss Martin's career and his experience with him and paid the ultimate compliment to the franchise icon by noting the impact he has on the team off the field.
"He's going to be missed, we're not going to replace Zack Martin," McCarthy admitted. "His presence, those meetings that we have offensively (by position group), Zack is a veteran leader that leads one of the meetings, those type of things behind closed doors, you're not going to replace that."
"He brings so much to the team, to the team culture" McCarthy added. "We all recognize how great of a player he has been here in Dallas for his whole career but what he gives us as a person, people gravitate to him and he does a really good job of bringing people together, that offensive line room is really an illustration of his leadership, he'll definitely be missed in that area."
What makes it such a perfect compliment is the simple fact that Martin doesn't need anyone to explain how great he was on the field. His resume speaks for itself:
- 11 seasons in the NFL
- 7 First-Team All-Pros
- 2 Second-Team All-Pros
- 9 Pro Bowls
- Only two seasons without All-Pro honors, including 2024, will be years in which he missed time due to injury.
But to hear from the head coach about the impact beyond what fans and media get to see on the gridiron elevates Martin's career to an even higher level.
It remains to be seen whether or not Zack decides to hang up the cleats. But one thing has become obvious: The Pro Football Hall of Fame can get started with that bust and gold jacket, because No. 70 is inevitably headed to Canton. That's if they haven't done it already years ago.