The ESSENTIAL Football Show 2025 Cap Space: $32.8 million
2026 Cap Space: $22.3 million
2027 Cap Space: $106.1 million
2026 Draft Picks: Own Picks, Rounds 1-5, 5th Rd Comp Pick (2x), NYG 7th Rd, KC 7th Rd
The Dallas Cowboys are swapping out head coaches, with former offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer promoted to take over for Mike McCarthy, but in many ways, it felt like Dallas was simply running it back in 2025 despite the down year in 2024.
Trading for former Steelers receiver George Pickens changes that equation, but it doesn’t entirely change the feeling of a team that, more than anything, needs its stars to be healthy.
Quarterback
Starter: Dak Prescott
Backups: Joe Milton, Will Grier
Running Back
Starters: Javonte Williams
Backups: Jaydon Blue, Miles Sanders, Phil Mafeh (7th Rd), Deuce Vaughn
Wide Receiver
Starters: CeeDee Lamb, George Pickens, Jalen Tolbert
Backups: KaVontae Turpin, Jonathan Mingo, Ryan Flournoy, Jalen Brooks, Parris Campbell
Tight End
Starters: Jake Ferguson
Backups: Luke Schoonmaker, Brevyn Spann-Ford
Offensive Line
Starters: Tyler Guyton, Tyler Smith, Cooper Beebe, Tyler Booker (1st Rd), Terence Steele
Backups: Asim Richards, Robert Jones, Brock Hoffman, T.J. Bass, Ajani Cornelius (6th Rd)
Offense Overview
Dak Prescott is set to return from the torn hamstring that ended his campaign last year, and if all goes well, it will be in a better situation than what he played through early last season.
That starts with Pickens, who is a perfect complement to star receiver CeeDee Lamb from a play-style perspective. Lamb can work from any part of the field, but he’s dominant in the slot, and playing with Pickens, who profiles as more of a pure boundary target, won’t create a logjam with any of the ways the Cowboys want to use Lamb.
The offensive line should also be improved; right tackle Terence Steele continues to take a lot of flak, but while I agree that he had regressed to his early-career struggles after returning from a significant knee injury, I also think that Steele played much better down the stretch last season, and that he’s a lot closer to the standard that originally earned him his contract than he was heading into 2024.
The Cowboys are also solid at center, where Cooper Beebe had a strong rookie campaign, and left guard, where Tyler Smith is an All-Pro level talent. The questions are at right guard and left tackle, where they will hope to slot in their first-round picks from the past two drafts, Tyler Booker and Tyler Guyton. (lot of Tylers on this line.) Booker was touted as a high-floor player coming out of Alabama, and the Cowboys will hope he hits the ground running, especially because Guyton’s situation isn’t as rosy as it looked a year ago; Guyton certainly has the size to play tackle in the NFL, but he struggled badly as a rookie and has a lot to clean up, from footwork to leverage to hand placement, and that total overhaul is far from guaranteed.
Another name that will get a lot of attention is running back Jaydon Blue, their 5th round selection out of Texas, but that has more to do with the fact that veteran cast-offs Javonte Williams and Miles Sanders are the other names on top of the depth chart. It still seems like a downright bizarre decision to let Rico Dowdle walk after a solid season to sign two veterans who bring significant injury histories, and who were both arguably outplayed by Dowdle.
At the end of the day, Dallas’s fate will be squarely on Dak Prescott’s shoulders once again, because even with the Pickens addition, there just isn’t a whole lot of juice on this offense.
Defensive Tackle
Starters: Osa Odighizuwa, Mazi Smith
Backups: Solomon Thomas, Jay Toia (7th Rd), Tommy Akingbesote (7th Rd)
Edge
Starters: Micah Parsons, Dante Fowler
Backups: Donovan Ezeiruaku (2nd Rd), Marshawn Kneeland, Payton Turner, Sam Williams
Linebackers
Starters: Kenneth Murray, Jack Sanborn
Backups: Marist Liufau, DeMarvion Overshown (knee), Shemar James (5th Rd)
Safety
Starters: Malik Hooker, Donovan Wilson
Backups: Markquese Bell, Juanyeh Thomas
Slot
Starter: Israel Mukuamu
Backups: Kemon Hall
Outside CB
Starters: DaRon Bland, Trevon Diggs (knee)
Backups: Shavon Revel Jr. (3rd Rd), Caelen Carson, Kaiir Elam, Andrew Booth
Defense Overview
The Cowboys defense improved to a certain degree after last year’s early season disasters, with former 1st-round nose tackle Mazi Smith stepping up from looking like a cut candidate to doing at least a mediocre job holding the point. Dallas also swapped out coordinators, brining in former Bears head coach Matt Eberflus to replace Mike Zimmer, but while the coordinator changed, the type of personnel on the defense looks fairly similar.
The defense revolves around their two standout pass-rushers, edge Micah Parsons and tackle Osa Odighizuwa, and while neither is a pure finesse player, the first thing that jumps out about both players is their quickness.
That would be fine with more players like Mazi Smith around them, but that’s not the mold of player the Cowboys have pursued; 2024 2nd rounder Marshawn Kneeland brings some of that presence at 6’3, 270, but the additions of free-agent Dante Fowler Jr. and 2025 2nd-rounder Donovan Ezeiruaku again lean to the speed mold. Fowler has some power to his game, but it’s his quickness that really defines his style, and Ezeiruaku is on the smaller side for an edge at 6’2, 250.
To exacerbate this issue, the Cowboys only made modest efforts to improve the off-ball linebacker position, where DeMarvion Overshown, who had started to shine in his second season, is currently rehabbing a significant knee injury suffered late last season. Dallas added veterans Kenneth Murray Jr. and Jack Sanborn; Sanborn is steady enough, but his lack of traits make him more of the ideal backup than a quality starter, while Murray has consistently disappointed as a starter due to a general lack of instincts. Murray played behind a dominant defensive tackle tandem in Tennessee last year, so some of his issues against the run didn’t stand out as much, but he was a consistent liability in that department during his time with the Chargers before that.
The back end is all about health; if Trevon Diggs and DaRon Bland were at full strength, the Cowboys would be in pretty good shape at outside cornerback, but while Bland eventually found his game late last season, Diggs is dealing with yet another knee injury that could force 3rd-rounder Shavon Revel Jr. into action sooner than expected.
It’s a significant issue, because while the safety tandem of Malik Hooker and Donovan Wilson have shown themselves to be solid over the years, they aren’t nearly the type of game-changers you would need to compensate for the sort of holes the Cowboys dealt with at outside corner last year.
There’s always the possibility that Dallas’s “island of misfit toys” experiment works out, and one of their recent acquisitions of a “stock-down” highly drafted prospect yields a return, but as it stands, defensive end Payton Turner, cornerback Kaiir Elam, and cornerback Andrew Booth seem unlikely to make a significant impact. (Kenneth Murray would also fit this general theme).
Overall Outlook
In terms of true ceiling, it’s really hard to imagine the Cowboys playing at any sort of dominant level this season. They have a few elite players, and another group of plus players, but there isn’t a lot in the way of depth, and the defense is going to have significant holes if Overshown and Diggs don’t surprise in their injury rehabs.
It also feels like there’s just a general lack of energy around this franchise, and there’s some questions about who exactly is driving this decision-making process, with both Jerry and Stephen Jones and de-facto general manager Will McClain all having a hand in things.
This might be best captured in this borderline obsession with acquiring failed 1st and 2nd round picks. I’ve got no problem with kicking the tires on these players, as guys drafted in those rounds typically have the traits required to play at the NFL level, but the Cowboys have made so many of these additions that they are borderline dependent on a jump in development that may never come.
In a league where the urgency is typically extreme, it’s an odd feel, and maybe it’s just being on the outside looking in; in any case, it’s hard to be excited about this squad heading into 2025.