Dallas Cowboys

Dallas Cowboys

The first step in getting this thing right is doing exactly what Jerry Jones did. Do the process like everyone else, get young names in the building, stop using old head coaches as your DC. That doesn't work as we have seen. Now, with getting Parker in the building, this could be great for their backend and maybe bring some guys in through free agency.

Trevon Diggs is no longer on the roster and DaRon Bland is rehabbing from a serious foot injury. What was once viewed as a massive strength just 12 months ago, is now a serious concern. The Cowboys hope they found a long-term solution in 2025 third-round pick Shavon Revel, but he had a tough rookie season that inspires more doubt than confidence.

I found that Murdock wins with instincts, angles, and physicality. He reads plays quickly, stays square, and finishes tackles. One thing I noticed is he doesn't overrun the ball or guess his way into trouble, he plays within the structure of the defense and does his job snap after snap. What really stood out to me is how he creates turnovers. Murdock finished his college career as the all-time FBS leader in forced fumbles, and that's not just luck.

The nickel now has become a premium position, a defensive-defining position. So having that length and strength is a big advantage, you know, to be able to reroute and disrupt releases of routes. Foot speed to be able to match routes when you're talking about being able to play true single-high coverage. And then your vision to be able to identify route concepts.

Super Bowl LX is set. The Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots will do battle once more, a Super Bowl rematch that we saw 11 years ago reborn. The AFC Championship Game was a bit of a snoozer on Sunday, although the weather obviously had a lot to do with that. On the NFC side of things we had a thriller all the way to the end that Seattle simply outlasted.

KaVontae Turpin is headed back to the Pro Bowl. He is replacing Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Rashid Shaheed who is set to play in the Super Bowl instead. Originally there were five members of the Cowboys named to the Pro Bowl: Dak Prescott, Tyler Smith, George Pickens, Quinnen Williams, and Brandon Aubrey.

The Cowboys haven't lacked talent on defense, but they have lacked unpredictability. Everything in 2025 looked the same before the snap, and offenses have known exactly where to go with the ball. Parker's background suggests that's not how he wants to run a defense. His approach leans toward more movement, disguise, and putting more on the safeties to read what's developing instead of just sitting. That alone could put the safety position front and center in this reset.

The Brian Schottenheimer era kicked off in 2025, and although it didn't end how we would have wanted to, the future looks bright. Dallas took an unorthodox (for them) approach to fill the offensive coordinator position, and it paid off well. Usually known to hire ex-head coaches as coordinators, the Cowboys instead hired Arizona Cardinals OL Coach Klayton Adams as offensive coordinator, and the results were more than pleasant.

Toia's rookie season in Dallas was almost entirely a redshirt year. He appeared in only five games, recording one solo tackle and two assists, with no sacks, no forced fumbles and no other stats on the box score. PFF graded him at 29.9 overall on those limited snaps and explicitly tagged him as having not enough snaps, which tells you both how little he played and how little weight you should put on the grade at this stage.

The most likely aspect that'll come over for Parker from a schematic standpoint is the two-high safety look. It's a versatile approach that doesn't tip the secondary's plan pre-snap and forces the QB to make post-snap reads as defenders can rotate into all sorts of different coverage looks after the snap in both man and zone. From a coverage standpoint, their most utilized coverage was Cover 3 over the two years Parker coached the Eagles (32.1% on average).

For Diggs, an offseason dispute over another rehab away from The Star was just the first step in what was to become a messy divorce. The Micah Parsons trade seemed to be the last straw, even though Diggs would play in eight games for the Cowboys, with six starts. He would finish with 25 tackles in those eight games. But he wouldn't record a single interception. He was finally released late in the year.

The 43-year-old Wisconsin native and former NFL safety is Denver's assistant head coach and defensive pass game coordinator, and he's risen through the ranks quickly to earn those titles. Hired in 2024 by the Broncos as the defensive backs coach and pass game coordinator, he's already seen a promotion in Mile High, and was a college assistant as recently as 2023 with the Illinois Fighting Illini.

In 2025, the Dallas Cowboys made a move in free agency and swung for the fences with two trades to shore up their linebacker room. They couldn't have gotten it any more wrong if they tried. Jack Sanborn was brought in from Chicago along with former Bears head coach Matt Eberflus. Both linebacker and defensive coordinator flopped badly. The Cowboys traded with the Los Angeles Chargers for linebacker Kenneth Murray.

The Dallas Cowboys finished 12th in the 2025 NFC and will clearly be aiming for improvement next season. Having strung together three wins in November, things were looking up for the Cowboys, but they suffered a poor run at the end of the season, losing four of their last five games. What can the Cowboys do in 2026 free agency? Cowboys 2026 Salary Cap The Cowboys are known for being one of the more conscious teams when it comes to their salary cap.

Kamara production didn't come out of nowhere one season. He has been consistent at both of the stops in his college football career. As a redshirt sophomore at James Madison in 2023, he put together a season where he had 53 total tackles, 18.5 tackles for a loss, and 7.5 sacks, while forcing four fumbles along the way. He was a defender living in the backfield. After that season, he followed head coach Curt Cignetti to Indiana through the transfer portal. Even then, nobody was rushing to get him. He entered the portal ranked 997th and 99th among defensive lineman.

Entering the offseason, the Dallas Cowboys have a lot of holes to address. While the defense stood out as the team's most glaring concern, the offense still has some under-the-radar areas to supplement. After some blockbuster trades this past season, the Cowboys have six draft picks currently, and possibly some compensatory picks. That said, Dallas will have limited ammunition to fill needs. Looking at where the Cowboys stand, here are the five most important positions for Dallas to set their sights on.

They are worth an absurd amount of money. We can save discussions for how the Cowboys can still afford (no pun intended) to be more active in free agency for another day, but on this one we are talking about how they currently have an opportunity to weaponize their value, both their financial one and the subsequent opportunities that are born from being associated with them.