What happened to Jake Ferguson? Cowboys TE helped off the field after taking brutal hit vs Browns

Jake Ferguson was supposed to follow up on a breakout sophomore as the Dallas Cowboys' TE1 in 2024. The defending NFC East champions had been looking for someone to succeed Dalton Schultz, and the 2022 fourth-round pick seemingly looked the part after a Pro Bowl campaign.

But in Sunday's Week 1 game against the Cleveland Browns, he was the subject of a particularly brutal third-quarter hit that left him needing to be helped off the field:

At the time he exited the game, Ferguson already had three catches for 15 yards.

His counterpart on the Browns, David Njoku, had himself needed to be helped off the field after taking a helmet-to-helmet hit by Cowboys safety Amani Hooker while running with the ball:

Njoku had been his team's leading receiver at the time, with four grabs for 44 yards.

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Jake Ferguson was looking to build on 2023 sophomore breakout

After sitting behind Dalton Schultz as a rookie, Jake Ferguson went from unknown to potential star in 2023, with career-highs of 71 catches for 761 yards and five touchdowns - good enough to be named a Pro Bowler. That left him confident in further progressing as a player, which he described in practice last week:

“I know there's a lot of work that I need to do, a lot of things that I need to get better at, a lot of things I need to get more consistent at. That work doesn't stop, or that work doesn't get shoved under the rug by any means, that's what I got to do, that's what I got to do to help this team win.”

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Jake Ferguson not only Cowboy to leave field at Browns

The initial prognosis on Ferguson was that his knee got hurt, which would make him the second Cowboys tight end to have a leg injury (backup John Stephens Jr. had already been ruled out with a hamstring). In his stead, sophomore Luke Schoonmaker and rookie Brevyn Spann-Ford played some snaps.

But he was not the only Cowboy to leave the field during the game. Earlier, another potential top contributor, linebacker Eric Kendricks, had left the game during the same third quarter when Ferguson after complaining of dehydration - he already had an interception on Deshaun Watson by then. He would eventually return.