Cowboys Rumors: Zack Martin to Have Season-Ending Surgery on Ankle Injury
December 5, 2024
Dallas Cowboys guard Zack Martin will undergo season-ending ankle surgery, head coach Mike McCarthy announced on Thursday.
The nine-time Pro Bowler played in ten games this season. He last played on Nov. 18.
According to ESPN's Todd Archer, Martin is undergoing a procedure on a right ankle problem that has lingered throughout the season.
He has been unable to play since suffering a left ankle sprain in Week 11 against the Houston Texans.
Martin has also been listed on Cowboys injury reports with back and shoulder issues this season.
The Cowboys will now have to finish out the season without a key part of the team's offensive line. T.J. Bass and Brock Hoffman are likely to continue to get more playing time at right guard in his absence.
The surgery raises the question of whether Martin, who turned 34 in November, has played his final game in a Cowboys uniform.
The Cowboys restructured Martin's contract ahead of the 2024 campaign with the goal of spreading out the dead money should the guard retire after this season, Archer reported in March.
Martin told the Dallas Morning News' Michael Gehlken ahead of the season that retiring in 2025 was "definitely in the realm of possibilities."
"After the season, we'll figure out what's going on," Martin told Gehlken in June.
McCarthy told reporters on Thursday that Martin and the Cowboys were not yet ready to have the conversation about his future.
"I think you just have to take a step back and deal with one thing at a time, and that's frankly the conversation that Zack and I had," McCarthy said, per Archer. "The focus is really about the surgery, what's next. And I think those are all questions that I'm sure that will be asked or will be thought about.
"But he really, in my conversations with him, his focus is on getting the surgery and trying to do the best he can with this ankle."
McCarthy added that Martin has undergone multiple procedures on the same ankle. He sat out the Pro Bowl in 2020 after undergoing an ankle procedure that January.
Martin has started all 162 games he has played since the Cowboys drafted him with the No. 16 pick in 2014. The seven-time All-Pro will be a candidate for the Pro Football Hall of Fame whenever he decides to retire.