Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images Enjoy some college football playoffs The College Football Playoffs continue with a semifinal game between Ohio State and Texas. This is an open thread for game chat.

Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images The Cowboys have to prioritize finding more weapons for their offense. The Cowboys ended the 2024 season on a bit of a high note, with the defense looking legitimately special and several young pieces of the offense taking important steps forward. However, the biggest story of this year that doomed the Cowboys was the offense regressing even before Dak Prescott was knocked out for the year. Some of it was due to Prescott playing poorly – he set career worsts in completion rate, EPA/dropback, CPOE, yards per attempt, and turnover worthy play rate – but there were more factors at play. CeeDee Lamb was slow out of the gate after missing nearly all of the offseason program due to his contract holdout. The offensive line also saw a lot of personnel rotations throughout the year. Perhaps the biggest issue, though, was a familiar one: Prescott had nowhere to go with the ball outside of Lamb. Brandin Cooks’ injury early in the season didn’t help, but Cooks wasn’t factoring into the offense much even before he was hurt. Jalen Tolbert looked better as the season went on, but he struggled with creating separation. One player whom the Cowboys seemingly relied on to take another big step forward was Jake Ferguson. A year ago, his first as the starting tight end, Ferguson broke out in a big way. His 761 receiving yards and five touchdowns on 71 catches all ranked in the top 10 of tight ends, and Prescott recorded a 109.8 passer rating when throwing to Ferguson; only George Kittle and Sam LaPorta were better in that regard. Unfortunately, though, Ferguson did not improve on his 2023 Pro Bowl campaign. In fact, he took a hard step back. It must be noted that Ferguson battled through several injuries, including a concussion that caused him to miss two games, but the tight end still showed a troubling regression this year. Jake Ferguson of Dallas had the lowest TE DYAR ever, while Elijah Moore had the third-lowest WR DYAR ever. Read more here. https://t.co/GXEeT6r4qO — Aaron Schatz (@ASchatzNFL) January 8, 2025 DYAR, which stands for Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement, is a metric that utilizes DVOA to measure an individual player’s total efficiency over the course of an entire year. For example, the top tight ends this year by DYAR were, in order, Kittle, Mark Andrews, and Tucker Kraft. Brock Bowers fell just shy in large part because of his outsized target share, meaning he had more drops and incompletions than the others that averaged out in the end. By this metric, though, Ferguson was not only the least efficient tight end in the league this year but the least efficient tight end in NFL history. He finished with 494 receiving yards on 59 receptions and failed to score a touchdown all year long. His 8.4 yards per reception was easily a career low, and the fairly mobile tight end also set a new low in yards after the catch per reception, dipping below the six mark for the first time in his career. Ferguson also got sloppy in his play, too. Coming into the year, he had never fumbled the ball; he did so four times on the season, losing two of them. He also managed to lead all skill players in penalties with nine despite missing three games. The Cowboys were banking on him having another strong year, but Ferguson turned sharply in the wrong direction. Of course, the quarterback situation didn’t help, but that wasn’t the cause of his struggles either. Looking at Ferguson’s receiving DVOA (which measures efficiency on a per-play basis), his DVOA when Prescott was playing was still a -24% grade. It dipped to -51% with Cooper Rush, but it’s not like Ferguson was playing efficient football before Prescott went down. As the tight end prepares to enter the final year of his rookie contract, these struggles put the Cowboys in an odd position. Ferguson has definitely shown the capability to be a high end player at his position, but the inconsistency is a concern. Prescott will be coming off his second serious injury when he returns next year, and he needs to have high caliber weapons to rely on outside of just Lamb. The most likely way to do that is by adding another wide receiver to the mix, rather than relying on Ferguson to be the second option in the passing game. But there will be opportunities to upgrade the tight end position too, whether it’s pending free agents like Mo Alie-Cox or Mike Gesicki, or a draft option like Penn State’s Tyler Warren. The Cowboys shouldn’t be quick to give up on Ferguson, but they also shouldn’t put as much faith in a bounce back year as they did this past offseason for him to have an improved year. If an opportunity to upgrade the position presents itself, the Cowboys would be right to take advantage.

Photo by David Rosenblum/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images Micah Parsons has made it clear that he wants to play with Abdul Carter in the NFL. Micah Parsons is a great football player. He’s one of the best in the NFL, regardless of position. Ever since the 2024 season ended for the Dallas Cowboys, though, he’s put his general manager hat on. He caused some waves earlier this week when he made a pitch to Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill to join the Cowboys. Now, he wants one of the best collegiate players in Dallas. On Thursday night, Notre Dame battled Penn State in the Orange Bowl. One of the top prospects for the 2025 draft in this contest was edge rusher Abdul Carter. He already attends the same school that Parsons did, and he wears the No. 11 like he wore for the Nittany Lions. Now, Parsons wants the Cowboys to draft Carter in April. It’s only right the NFL lets me and Abdul play together!! — Micah Parsons (@MicahhParsons11) January 10, 2025 This would be a dream come true for the Cowboys. Outside of Parsons, Dallas has several question marks at edge rusher. Rookie Marshawn Kneeland has shown some flashes, but he did deal with the injury bug this year, which slowed his progress. So, the jury is still out on him. Sam Williams, who was supposed to take a significant leap in 2024, suffered a torn ACL and missed the entire year. Veteran Carl Lawson had a nice season with five sacks, but he’s set to hit free agency. Then, there’s the uncertain future of DeMarcus Lawrence after he missed 13 games with a Lisfranc injury. That type of uncertainty makes Carter such an appealing player for the Cowboys. He has a tremendous burst off the line of scrimmage and the bend around the edge to cause fits for opposing offenses. He plays with speed and power, and his athleticism is off the charts. When Carter is chasing ball carriers, he has the closing speed to bring them down quickly by taking great angles while he patrols sideline to sideline. The kid is simply a stud. Carter has been productive his entire collegiate career. Going into the Orange Bowl, he registered 167 tackles (100 tackles for loss), 39 tackles for loss, and 22 sacks. The season was his best as he set his best marks in tackles (63), tackles for loss (22), and sacks (11). Also, he’s racked up 12 pass breakups and five forced fumbles. The Cowboys will have the 12th pick in the first round of the draft. This makes landing Carter challenging because he’s such a sought-after prospect that he could very well go in the top 10. However, the draft is unpredictable, and guys fall every single season. Plus, the Cowboys have landed a plethora of All-Pro players outside of the top 10 over the last half decade. The Cowboys need a lot, and edge rusher is undoubtedly in play early if the right guy is on the board. Will Carter be there and fulfill the prophecy of Parsons? We shall see.

Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images The Dallas Cowboys had 3 All-Pro selections this season. The regular season wrapped up a week ago for the National Football League which means that the playoffs are about to start and a handful of other things. Among the “other things” are accolades and awards. There is still some time between now and NFL Honors when things like MVP, Offensive/Defensive Player of the Year, etc. will all be handed out, but the Pro Bowl rosters came out recently (the Dallas Cowboys had 5 players selected) and on Friday the Associated Press All-Pro Teams were announced. The Cowboys had only a single First-Team All-Pro this season. It was on the special teams side of things and was not surprisingly KaVontae Turpin. There were two Second-Team All-Pro selections on the Cowboys roster in CeeDee Lamb and Brandon Aubrey. All three of those players were named to the Pro Bowl which makes sense. Dallas’ other two Pro Bowlers were Micah Parsons and Tyler Smith. While they were not All-Pro selections it is worth noting that Parsons did receive some votes in the overall process, although Smith did not. The results of The Associated Press 2024 NFL All-Pro balloting as selected by a national panel of 50 media members. First-place votes in parentheses are worth three points, second-place votes worth one: OffenseQuarterbacksLamar Jackson, Baltimore, 109 (30); Josh Allen, Buffalo… — Rob Maaddi (@RobMaaddi) January 10, 2025 #Cowboys edge @MicahhParsons11 missed 4 games and still got enough votes to barely miss second-team All-Pro by 3 points. That’s how dominant he is when he’s on the field. — Rob Maaddi (@RobMaaddi) January 10, 2025 Parsons was not the only Cowboys player to receive votes and not be named an All-Pro. Hunter Luepke, DeMarvion Overshown, Jourdan Lewis and Trent Sieg all received some love. The Cowboys have three total All-Pros as noted, down from the incredible nine that they fielded during the 2023 season. This is KaVontae Turpin’s first All-Pro selection in general and obviously as a First-Teamer it is as high of an honor as it can be. Lamb was a First-Team All-Pro last year and a Second-Teamer the season before so he has now been an All-Pro three consecutive seasons in a row. Brandon Aubrey was a First-Team All-Pro last season so he is only at a streak of two. Congratulations to the Dallas Cowboys All-Pro selections!

Photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images Rico Dowdle had quite the season for the Cowboys. The Dallas Cowboys have a long list of unrestricted free agents who will officially hit the open market in a little over two months. Of those, six or seven were significant contributors in 2024, meaning the Cowboys have some difficult decisions ahead of them in the next two months. Today, we take a look at a Dallas impending free agents coming off the best stretch of his career, running back Rico Dowdle. Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images 2024 Regular Season Stats: 16G, 235 Rushing Attempts, 1,079 Rushing Yards, 4.6 Y/A, 2 Rushing Touchdowns, 53 1st Downs, 45 Missed Tackles Forced, 26 10+ Yard Runs Year Review: 2024 was a tale of two halves for Cowboys’ running back Rico Dowdle. Coming into the regular season, many believed Dallas would lean on Dowdle as their primary running back right out of the gate. However, that ended up not being the case. Through Dallas’ first six regular season games, Dowdle carried the ball more than 11 times in a single contest just once. In the game in which he achieved that feat, the 26-year-old running back had the best individual performance to that point of his NFL career, rushing for 87 yards and scoring one of Dallas’ two offensive touchdowns in a big road win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. After that game, it was back to more of the same as Dowdle carried the ball, 5, 12, 12, and 10 times in Dallas’ four next contests. It seemed clear to everyone but the Cowboys that Dowdle was by far the best back on the roster, but Dallas stayed away from making him their clear lead running back, continuing to give carries to aging veterans. Finally, all the way in Week 12 before a matchup against the Washington Commanders, Cowboys’ head coach Mike McCarthy came out and publicly stated Dowdle would be their clear number-one running back moving forward. This decision ended up being one of the best McCarthy would make all year, as Dowdle went on a tear in Dallas’ final seven games of the regular season. Over this seven-game span, he was one of the most productive running backs in all of football. From Week 12 on, Dowdle led the NFL in yards after contact (344), was fourth in 10+ yard runs (13), fifth in rushing yards (479), and sixth in missed tackles forced (19). Dowdle made it abundantly clear he was more than capable of being a lead back and made Dallas’ decision to have him split carries for the first half of the season look even more foolish. Free Agency Outlook: Dowdle’s late-season run makes his potential free agent market much harder to project. Before that seven-game span, the former undrafted free agent looked like he’d be lucky to earn a $2-3M deal on the open market. Now, with seven games of stellar play under his belt, he may have a chance to nearly double that number if the Cowboys let him hit free agency. Last offseason we saw a stunning 12 running backs earn multi-year contracts as free agents. Of those 12 who signed, eight secured deals with an AAV of $4M or higher. After the way he performed at the end, you’d have to imagine Dowdle and his camp will be aiming for a two- or three-year deal worth $4M or more annually in free agency. Zack Moss (2 years, $8M) and Devin Singletary (3 years, $16M) who signed last spring may be good benchmarks for what Dowdle’s contract will end up looking like. Singletary had put together more consistently solid play throughout his then five-year career than Dowdle has entering free agency, so Moss’s contract may be a better projection for what he may earn. Cowboys Verdict: Deciding what to do with Rico Dowdle may be one of the toughest questions for the Cowboys to answer this offseason. If they let him walk, they leave their running back room looking like one of the worst individual units in all of football. But, if they do go ahead and re-sign Dowdle, they may block themselves from taking a talented runner they really like, possibly Ashton Jeanty, in the first round of the draft. With all the needs elsewhere on their roster, the smart thing to do would be to re-sign Dowdle to an affordable deal and draft a young running back in the third round to pair with him. However, knowing the way the Cowboys operate, the smart move isn’t always the decision they make. Even after his dominant late-season run, Dowdle’s not going to break the bank with whatever contract he ends up signing. He’s not going to get as much as Tony Pollard did last year, and if Dallas were to offer him a two-year deal worth around $8-10M total he probably would be willing to come back. Ultimately, as much as the Cowboys would love to attempt to find their next Zeke Elliott in the first round of the draft, they can’t leave themselves that bare at the running back spot. Re-signing Dowdle is the right move in this situation, and this time Dallas will make the right call. Prediction: Rico Dowdle re-signs with Dallas Cowboys on a two-year, $9M deal.

Photo by Kevin Sabitus/Getty Images The latest headlines surrounding the Dallas Cowboys. Strong bones and a broken mallet: DeMarvion Overshown details surgery and his expectations – Jon Machota, The Athletic DeMarvion Overshown does not have a timeline for recovery, but he is determined to get back to playing football as soon as he can. The Dallas Cowboys linebacker tore the ACL, MCL and PCL in his right knee during Dallas’ Week 14 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. The procedure that followed last month included work on both knees. Overshown said the surgeon took the patellar tendon out of his left knee and used it to fix his right ACL. They discussed pulling from his hamstring and quad but that could lead to losing some speed and power in his legs. His left knee looked healthy on the scan, so they went in that direction. “I’m out of patellar tendons,” Overshown said. “This is it. You have two good ones. Two good enough to reconstruct your other ACL.” There were screws already in his surgically-repaired left knee that needed to come out to complete the procedure. The surgeon needed to use a mallet. It broke. “He said my bone was so strong and so dense that he broke his mallet,” Overshown said. “I got some strong, healthy bones. For people that say drink milk to get strong, healthy bones, that is not true. I do not like milk at all. But according to the doc, I have some of the most dense bones he’s ever seen.”… …“They haven’t really tried to talk timelines with me, just because they know how I am,” he said. “Don’t tell me that I’m going to miss the whole season. Don’t tell me I can play at the beginning of the season. Being me, I’m going to try to get there right now. I think it’s kind of like last year, we’re going to get to the nine-month period, see how I am, start working me in and wait until I’m fully comfortable and healthy. Carl Lawson is ‘100 percent’ open to re-signing with Cowboys – Patrik Walker, DallasCowboys.com The Cowboys may want to keep Carl Lawson in Dallas next season, and Lawson is open to the idea. His season includes one of the biggest highlights of the season for Cowboys, when he bull rushed two-time All-Pro and four-time Pro Bowl tackle Tristan Wirfs into the Earth’s crust. “I know I have scary potential as a football player. It’s just [about] putting it on consistently, and being able to put that out there,” Lawson said. “I’m really excited for the work I’m going to put in this offseason. … This is the year where I feel I’m going to have my biggest jump going into the next season. … I’m more confident going into the following season more than any other season [prior]. “I know what to do. I know what I need to work on and I know how to do those things. It’s going to happen inevitably. I just don’t know the ‘when’ and the ‘where’.” Considering he’s formed “bonds that are gonna last a lifetime” in Dallas, those having been formed in the crucible of adversity, might Lawson’s “where” be in a Cowboys uniform in 2025? He’s certainly open to the idea. “Oh, one hundred percent,” he said. “One hundred percent.” Here We Goooo: Is 2025 the year of the bounce back? – Tommy Yarrish, DallasCowboys.com There are so many things that went wrong in 2024, will the Cowboys be able to bounce back in 2025? I don’t have to tell you that injuries were a storyline throughout the course of the year for Dallas in 2024. Will 2025 be the year of the bounce back for the Cowboys key players? If it is, it will likely all start with Dak Prescott. Through his first nine games before a season ending hamstring injury, Prescott wavered from his 2023 MVP runner-up performance, throwing eight interceptions to go with 11 touchdowns, compared to the nine picks he had thrown the entire year before. When Prescott is clicking, so is the rest of this offense. And speaking of the rest of the offense, Prescott’s reinsertion could open the doors for their respective bounce back seasons too. Take Jake Ferguson for example, who had just 59 receptions for 494 yards and no touchdowns in 2024, with drop struggles mixed in. Or maybe Jonathan Mingo, who caught just five passes for 46 yards after being dealt for a fourth-round pick at the trade deadline. The offensive line will look for a bounce back season too, especially at left tackle with Tyler Guyton, who worked through penalty, injury, and protection injuries all season long. The Cowboys are confident he can develop into a good player for them, but he needs the time on the practice field to get the reps necessary to spark that development. On the defensive side of the ball, can Sam Williams return from his season-ending injury and produce at a similar level from his first two seasons? He tallied 8.5 sacks and would be a welcome addition back to the defensive line opposite Micah Parsons. In the secondary, can Caelen Carson put his rookie struggles behind him and get back to playing aggressive, tight coverage? Teams picked on him at times this season, but Carson has the frame and tools necessary to help this secondary when playing his best. There’s a lot of “if’s” for each of these players, and all of them having a bounce back season is unlikely. That said, not all of them need to have a drastically different season for the Cowboys to get back in the playoff picture. Why Troy Aikman thinks Mike McCarthy will be back with Cowboys in 2025 – Joey Hayden, Dallas Morning News Troy Aikman gave his opinion on who he predicts will be the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys next season: Mike McCarthy. “I don’t know how you sell this one way or