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Johnston will undergo neck surgery, miss rest of season

DALLAS (AP) - Dallas Cowboys fullback Daryl Johnston will undergo surgery to repair a bulging disk in his neck and miss the rest of the season, he said Wednesday.

"We'll be taking out the entire disk," he told Dallas-Fort Worth television station KXAS.

Johnston said the herniated disk is pushing on a nerve at the base of his neck.

"So we'll remove the entire disk and fuse the C-6 and C-7 vertebrae together," he said.

Johnston told the station that he expected to undergo the procedure Oct. 31.

"We have a few personal things that I made in advance that I need to take care of," he said. "Hopefully, Friday will be the first open day that we can get the surgery done because we feel it should be done as soon as possible once the decision is made."

He said he'll be limited in the use of his neck for about six months after the surgery as a precaution. However, he denied recent reports that the injury and corrective surgery would end his football career.

"This gives me the best chance to be on the field next year," Johnston said.

"So as I pointed out last week, this never was career-threatening. My career was never in jeopardy. The procedure that we're going to go ahead and do, that was discussed all along, was always going to be a career-enhancing procedure."

Johnston added: "I actually think I'm going to come back stronger than I've been since probably 1995."

Johnston, 31, had played in every regular-season game since 1989 - 134 straight - before missing Sunday's 26-22 victory over Jacksonville.

Herschel Walker has replaced him in the Cowboys' backfield.