DALLAS COWBOYS INJURY UPDATE: Sean Lee won’t play Sunday | Dallas Cowboys vs. Green Bay Packers | 2013-2014 NFL Game 14 of 16

IRVING, Texas – Green Bay’s starting quarterback will be out again, but so too will the Dallas Cowboys defensive quarterback and leader. 

Sean Lee had been a limited practice participant all week since straining his neck against the Bears on Monday night, but he was off the field entirely for the first time this week on Friday and will not play in Sunday’s game. The news was discovered not long after the Packers ruled out Aaron Rodgers.

In an interview with 105.3 The Fan on Friday, Lee said he was feeling better earlier in the week. He also said there’s still a chance he could play against Washington on Dec. 22.

“The plan is to rest and hopefully reevaluate early next week,” Lee said. “Early in the week I was getting better and feeling healthier and healthier, so that’s why I was gung-ho on being ready to play this week. Hopefully that’s a good sign, meaning that I’m going to continue to improve this week and continue to improve next week and get reevaluated. Hopefully we’ll know pretty soon when I’ll be back. Obviously, it’s extremely frustrating.”

Lee said after Thursday’s no-pads practice he would try to fight through the injury. But after checking with doctors between Thursday’s practice and Friday morning’s practice, he was deemed incapable of going back on the field this week.

“He worked through yesterday’s practice on a fairly limited basis,” head coach Jason Garrett said before Friday’s practice. “He was in there a lot, but some of the other guys were getting some action as well. That happened the other night in the ballgame where it was a neck type issue. He’s as tough a guy as there is. We talked about (Jason) Witten, and Sean Lee’s cut from the same cloth.”

Garrett said Lee’s injury is similar to anyone’s in that they’ll try to predict how he can handle it with physical exams and scans and based off what the player’s saying and how he’s reacting. He said he’d see how Lee felt Friday, but evidently the news wasn’t positive.

Lee described the injury as more muscle related than nerve related and said there wasn’t necessarily a specific protocol he had to pass in order to play this weekend. But he also said he’d continue to get tested throughout the week and go through scans.

Clearly, the doctors saw something they weren’t comfortable with. The injury to the neck comes immediately after Lee missed two games with a hamstring injury.

Bruce Carter, Dwayne Harris and Morris Claiborne were also off the field at Friday’s practice.