Bill Parcells apparently has a nearly miraculous ability to heal injured players.

Against Arizona, Larry Allen came limping off the field late in the second quarter, but there Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells was, greeting him at the sideline, sort of giving him one of those paternal punches to the chest, saying, hey, you're all right and we need you back in there. Allen returned in the third quarter.

Well, the other day, Parcells passed rookie tight end Jason Witten. You know, the kid who had his jaw fractured in last week's Arizona game when Ron McKinnon speared him with a helmet to the chin on a catch over the middle. (McKinnon was fined, by the way.) You remember, don't you, No. 82 kind of stumbling toward the sideline when veteran deep snapper Jeff Robinson sort of grabbed him, thinking the kid had forgotten about his punt duties. That is, until he saw his woozy eyes and blood dripping from his mouth, then directed him to the sideline.

"After he spit up blood all over my wrist I figured he shouldn't be out there," Robinson quipped of his sage advice.

Yep, that Witten, the one the very night after the game had surgery to repair the fractured right side of his face, doctors implanting a metal plate to help stabilize the bone and then using these braces over the tops of his upper gums to hold everything in place.

Well, the next day, Parcells listed the 21-year-old kid "doubtful" for this past Sunday's game against Philadelphia. Doubtful? Doubtful?

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So there was Parcells with Witten that other day, and he looks at his second tight end who has turned into a better blocker sooner than anticipated and who has been a staple in the Cowboys' two-tight end offensive sets, giving him one of those verbal shots to the chest.

"He kind of got on me the other day," Witten says, doing his best to crease a smile with all that hardware in his mouth. "'We need you back out there . . . get off that medicine.'"

Hey, he's young, as I said, coming out of Tennessee as a junior, and but a self-described "country boy," so Monday, the day after the Cowboys slugged the Eagles, 23-21, at Texas Stadium, Witten got off the painkillers for the first time since his surgery. Not only that, he tried going outside to run some in the morning.

"Hurt a little bit," Witten reported.

No kidding.