Jerry Jones invested a lot in his defensive tackles, and it sounds like there’s no plan to split up the super group.
Keeping Dallas’ interior defensive line trio together
Speaking of Williams, Jones was also complimentary of how he has fit in with, and opened things up for his teammates like Osa Odighizuwa and Kenny Clark. The three of them are paving the way up front for Dallas’ defensive turnaround the last three games.
After this season though, it’ll cost around $60 million in cap space to keep the three of them together as things stand right now, which brought up some doubt about whether the Cowboys would be willing to navigate that situation. Jones made it no secret that he’s willing to find a way.
“All three of those players have, again, tremendous football character. We knew that when we extended Osa this year…” Jones said. “When you line those three up in there, and you’ve got them either in rotation or you’ve got them in there together, you really create a dominant feature to our team. A combination of all of them, someone asked ‘Well, you’re not going to be able to keep them all three.’ That’s not right. We can, and we can build from that.”
Injury updates on Jadeveon Clowney and Trevon Diggs
Defensively, the Cowboys have dealt with injuries all season and are continuing to do so heading into their Thursday night game against Detroit. Defensive end Jadeveon Clowney (hamstring) was limited in practice on Monday, but Jones is optimistic that he’ll have a chance to play, although it’ll likely be a game-time decision.
“I look to him to be available this [week], but we don’t have many days left for him to be out there,” Jones said. “Planning on him playing, but that’s not a given. This truly is warm him up out there before the game on Thursday, and if they can play, then you’ll make them active… He has had two games back-to-back that are very noteworthy.”
In learning key aspect of new role, Shavon Revel Jr. continues to amaze the Dallas Cowboys – Joseph Hoyt, Dallas Morning News
So far, it looks like the Dallas Cowboys have another star in the making with Shavon Revel.
Shavon Revel Jr. received his first pair of cowboy boots, fittingly, when he became a Cowboy. All the rookie draft picks for the Dallas Cowboys were gifted boots when they first joined the team this offseason.
Revel’s were distinctive: all black, made with ostrich leather, designed by Lucchese. And, perhaps most important, they were brand new.
Boot-wearers know there’s an adjustment period to a new pair. You have to break them in before they feel comfortable. For Revel, the same can be said about learning his new role in the Cowboys’ defense.
The Cowboys considered Revel one of the best corner prospects in the 2025 NFL draft, if not the best. If not for a torn ACL early in his final collegiate season, Revel would’ve likely been taken earlier than the third round, where the Cowboys eventually selected him. In Revel, the Cowboys saw a talented corner who could use his 6-foot-1 height and nearly 80-inch wingspan to excel in press-man coverage.
Revel showcased that during his NFL debut in Las Vegas three games ago, but if he was going to carve out a consistent role with the Dallas defense, he had to be more. Instead of the defense adapting to him, he had to adapt to it, which meant learning how to play zone coverage at a high level for the first time in his career.
Revel’s commitment to that might be the most impressive thing he’s done in his early career, according to coaches.
“He continues to amaze me, man,” Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer said earlier this week.
“It’s so fun to watch him grow.”
Revel has been a willing learner, too. When he visited the Cowboys prior to the draft he recalled telling them that he wanted to learn more about zone coverage. He wanted to learn all the little details, especially because it was so unfamiliar to him. His build is perfectly designed for the man coverage he mostly played his entire life. He estimated that 90% of his college career at East Carolina was spent in man coverage. There were only a few situational exceptions that called for running zone.
One NFL draft expert fittingly described Revel as a boundary bully. He wasn’t known as a zone savant.
Cowboys at Lions: 3 players Dallas needs to step up in Week 14 – Matthew Holleran
If Dallas wants to keep their playoff hopes alive, here are a few players that could be key to a victory Thursday night.
Fresh off a huge win over the Kansas City Chiefs on Thanksgiving Day, the Dallas Cowboys wrap up their three-game gauntlet this Thursday as they take on the Detroit Lions. Both the Cowboys and Lions desperately need to win this game to stay in the playoff hunt, so this figures to be a very competitive matchup. With that thought in mind, today, we take a look at three players Dallas will need to step up if they want to defeat the Lions.
1) RB Javonte Williams
Coming into their bye week back in Week 9, the Detroit Lions were riding high. Detroit had a 5-2 record, winning five of its last six games, and a defense that allowed just 21 points per game. However, since the bye week, things have looked a lot different for the team from Michigan.
As a team, they’ve posted a 2-3 record over their last five games, and much of their overall struggles fall on the failures of their defense. Detroit’s defense has given up 25 points per game over this five-game stretch, and its inability to consistently stop the run has been a big reason why it has failed to get consistent stops.
Opponents are averaging 126 rushing yards per game against the Lions since Week 9, and the unit is in the bottom half of the league in defensive rush EPA (-0.086) over this span. This week, the Lions’ run defense faces another tough test against a Cowboys team that has been very efficient in the run game this season, ranking 11th in the NFL in Rush EPA (-0.030) and Rush Success Rate (42.7%).
2) LBs DeMarvion Overshown and Logan Wilson
If the Cowboys’ defense is going to have success in Thursday’s matchup, their number one priority needs to be slowing down Detroit’s star running back Jahmyr Gibbs. The 23-year-old is one of the most explosive offensive players in all of football, and he has once again been one of the most productive running backs in the league this season.
Gibbs’ ability to make explosive, game-changing plays has been a big reason for Detroit’s offensive success this season. The former first-round pick leads the league with 24 explosive runs (20+ yard runs) this year, including 14 rushes of 30 or more yards and eight of 40 or more.
In the Lions’ Week 12 matchup against the New York Giants, you could make a solid argument that Gibbs was the sole reason the Lions escaped with a win. The 23-year-old had a career day, recording 219 rushing yards on just 15 carries, including a 69-yard touchdown run on the first play of overtime that helped lead to the Lions’ win.
Kenny Clark on momentum: ‘Won’t matter’ if it halts vs. Lions – Patrik Walker, DallasCowboys.com
Kenny Clark knows a thing or two about playing the Detroit Lions.
They can no longer simply hand the ball off and run all over the Cowboys, and they also can’t enjoy a comfortable pocket that remains fairly clean, save for some pressure from the edges, on occasion. As Clark readily explained heading into the upcoming primetime matchup against the Detroit Lions, the defensive front in Dallas is in a new era of dominance.
“We’re all students of the game and just understand the angles, and just how to play,” he said about the instant chemistry between himself, Williams, Osa Odighizuwa and Solomon Thomas.
“I mean, we are all physical, and we all bring something different to the table,” Clark added. “And I just think we’re just all playing off of each other. Depending on who you double team, or whatever the case may be, we do a good job at winning our one-on-one and getting pressure. … We’re winning on first and second down, getting guys to drop back situations, and we’re expected to win when we do that.”
And they’ve been doing exactly that, an interior unit that generates more pressure than does many edge units around the league, and the run defense has been one of the best in the league through the three-game win streak since exiting the bye week.
“You get pressure up the middle, I mean, that’s the toughest pressure for those quarterbacks,” Clark said. “I mean, you get pressure on the edge, you can step up and all that kind of stuff. So getting in their face and just disrupting throws, disrupting their timing — that’s huge.”
They’ll look to keep the good time rolling against the Lions, but that won’t be a cake walk, or even a cupcake jog, given just how scrappy and gritty the Dan Campbell-led Lions are — along with the fact there’s no love lost between these two teams over the past two seasons.
Though this will be Clark’s (and Williams’, and Thomas’) first taste of what has become of the Cowboys-Lions budding rivalry, they all understand the assignment. It’s essentially a playoff game for both teams, a mode the Cowboys have been in since their Week 11 victory over the Las Vegas Raiders; and they’ve since mounted a historic comeback over the Philadelphia Eagles and, just four days later, on Thanksgiving, took down Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.
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