The latest headlines surrounding the Dallas Cowboys.
DaRon Bland not concerned about rust once Cowboys clear him for 2024 debut – Patrik Walker, DallasCowboys.com
DaRon could be making his way on to the football field this Sunday against the Washington Commanders.
Assuming Bland is medically cleared to take the field against the Washington Commanders in Week 12, it will mark a total of 315 days from when he last played — on Jan. 14 against the Green Bay Packers in last season’s playoffs — or a total of 319 days if he’s held out until the matchup against the New York Giants on Thanksgiving.
Either way, he says he has zero concerns about being rusty, and it would likely help that, for the first time as a starter, he’d take the field with both Trevon Diggs and Jourdan Lewis.
“Yeah, definitely, shoot — just putting the helmet back on felt good,” said Bland.
Some might find it difficult to locate fuel in a season wherein the team has fallen to 3-7, and especially when, physically, your body has prevented you from taking to the field and trying to help prevent that spiral.
Bland is far from mentally checked out though, and he has zero interest in being shut down for the remaining seven games.
The Cowboys’ tough transition from Quinn to Zimmer as DC – Todd Archer, ESPN
It will be difficult to evaluate Mike Zimmer’s impact in 2024 as injuries have made it difficult to implement a solid defensive scheme.
Injuries might be viewed as excuses, but they are also valid reasons.
“I do think when you’re down to your fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth defensive linemen, and you’re down to your fourth, fifth, whatever corner situation, I think that’s going to make a difference,” Zimmer said. “If we had all those players healthy and playing, then I think it would be different in a lot of ways.”
Zimmer has changed his plans, adjusting his fronts, coming up with different personnel packages and turning more to blitzing as the season has gone on.
“Losing our guy, our pass rushing guy [Parsons] and a couple of our other guys, you got to create other different things,” linebacker DeMarvion Overshown said. “I’m sure this is something he cooked up before the injuries, where now it’s, ‘OK, now we’re filling in pieces,’ and you can’t really just throw everything that you been doing at training camp at somebody that just got here a week or two ago. So he has definitely been dealing with stuff, but I definitely can see here he’s getting comfortable with his guys on the field. He’s able to dial it up and trust that we’re going to get the job done.”
But there have been times where Zimmer has schemed up a free rusher on the opposing quarterback only to see the defender miss a sack. Two weeks ago against the Eagles, Overshown missed a sack of Jalen Hurts, who threw a touchdown pass to Dallas Goedert. Last week, safety Donovan Wilson missed a sack after being unblocked.
“I mean, when you get free runners, you like to get them home,” Zimmer said.
Six reasons why Cowboys season is a disaster: Injuries, CeeDee Lamb’s holdout, more – Jon Machota, The Athletic
There are plenty of reasons why this season for the Dallas Cowboys has gone south.
They didn’t do enough in the offseason
When other teams filled roster holes through free agency and trades in March and April, the Cowboys did very little. Their March consisted of signing veteran linebacker Eric Kendricks to a one-year, $3 million contract. There were no trades like a year ago when they moved fifth-round picks for proven veterans like cornerback Stephon Gilmore and wide receiver Brandin Cooks. In August, they traded for CB Andrew Booth and defensive tackle Jordan Phillips and signed DT Linval Joseph and running back Dalvin Cook. Their two biggest misses were not upgrading more at running back (more on that later) and not doing more at defensive tackle.
Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy is used to working in a draft-and-develop program from his time in Green Bay. But it’s clear there were not enough gaps filled in the offseason.
“It’s hard to do it every year because you’ve got the whole financial realm over here that’s critical to the process of putting together a roster,” McCarthy said earlier this month. “You try to make sure through veteran free agency you have spots full or at least you know you can go play a game today if you had to in April. And then you’re not drafting for need. You try to stay away from drafting for need. But some years it’s not practical. Have been there even in a draft-and-develop program for 13 years. We said we were BPA, best player available, all the time, but there were times we were not. So that happens.
“I personally as a head coach … when you’re signing veterans in camp and you’re doing things at the end, I think that’s a pretty big challenge. Because that’s happened more this year that I haven’t been exposed to as much. If you can have everybody here in April, when that draft’s over and you line up and you’ve got that 90-man roster, if you can get to work on continuity and consistency, I think that’s a huge factor in the start of your season.”
Micah Parsons on Cowboys’ growth and learning to lead – Tommy Yarrish, DallasCowboys.com
Despite the 3-7 record, Micah Parsons says there are positives to grow from for this 2024 defense.
“I know we’re growing; I know some of these young who didn’t get the opportunities, they’re getting better,” Parsons said. “Let’s look at the film, let’s break it down. Of course young guys are still going to make mistakes, that’s what learning is.”
Parsons has played in Dallas’ last two games against the Eagles and Texans, both of which were one-score games at halftime. Now, it’s a matter of getting the job done across four quarters.
“If we really look at how those games went, we’re in those games,” Parsons said. “Now we don’t have all our healthy players, so things aren’t going the way we want, but we’re not away in these games, we’re playing good football. It’s just, you know, how the cards turn.”
Dallas has shown improvements at time throughout the season, but they have yet to play consistently strong through four quarters defensively, a big reason why they’re on this five game losing streak. The potential light at the end of the tunnel is getting key playmakers back, as DaRon Bland and Marshawn Kneeland appear to be on track to return to the lineup soon. Parsons believes that when this season is all said and done, regardless of what their record reflects, the defense will have something to hang their hats on.
“By the end of this year, y’all are going to say Mike Zimmer didn’t have all his pieces, but we sure did put a damn good defense together,” Parsons said. “And I can take that, because I know we can grow from that.”
Cowboys’ Jones Talks Cooper Rush over Trey Lance as QB1: Winning Is ‘Number 1 Thing’ – Timothy Rapp, Bleacher Report
Jerry Jones credits the need to win football games as the reason to stick with Cooper Rush at QB.
“Rush gives us the best chance to win the game,” he told reporters Thursday. “That is the No. 1 thing of importance, win the game. Not evaluate.”
Rush, 30, has thrown for 399 yards, one touchdown, one interception and has been sacked six times in his two starts this season, losing two fumbles. The Cowboys have lost those games by a combined score of 68-16 to the Philadelphia Eagles and Houston Texans.
In the process, Dallas has dropped to 3-7 on the season, clinging to the longest of playoff odds. The fact that the team isn’t completely eliminated from postseason contention just yet is perhaps why Jones will persist with Rush as the quarterback rather than taking a long look at Lance and giving him some developmental time.
