Ahead of their Sunday Night Football game against the San Francisco 49ers, the Dallas Cowboys are making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

The hosts head into this Week 8 clash in serious need of a victory after getting blown out in Week 6 by the Detroit Lions, 47-9. After a bye week, the hope is America’s Team can bounce back and take advantage of the injury-riddled Niners.

Before kick-off, however, the Cowboys mysteriously announced that Rico Dowdle, their top running back this season, is suddenly questionable to play due to an illness. The weird part? He walked into the building looking fine:

“Cowboys announce Rico Dowdle came down with something upon arriving at the stadium,” Cowboys insider Nick Harris wrote.

“He was seen in the tunnels walking in the stadium looking just fine and rapping along to a song he was listening to. Must’ve happened after getting in the locker room. He’s listed as questionable.”

That has NFL fans on X extremely skeptical and not believing that Dowdle is actually sick. The belief appears to be that Dallas didn’t want to sit Ezekiel Elliott since Dalvin Cook is set to make his team debut.

“They really don’t want to hurt Zeke’s feelings. Ridiculous.,” one fan wrote.

“They really want to get a look at Dalvin this is shameless,” another fan said.

“So instead of sitting Zeke they f*** over Rico? Their best rb? Makes sense,” a third fan voiced with anger. 

“He’s come down with ‘Jerry wants Zeke to be active’ “, a fourth supporter wrote. 

Fans are set on the Cowboys making Dowdle inactive so they didn’t have to bench Zeke. Dallas wasn’t going to suit up three running backs.

Dowdle has been the star in the backfield in ’24, rushing for 4.2 yards per carry. Elliott? He’s only run for three yards per carry.