Dallas City News

The season begins on Sunday for the Dallas Cowboys and with a road trip against the Cleveland Browns on the menu. Finally seeing this team in real action will be fun.

When the game kicks off there will be several new elements surrounding the Cowboys. Obviously Tyler Guyton and Cooper Beebe headline things from a player perspective, CeeDee Lamb’s contract extension from a work-the-front-office-actually-did one. But there is another new factor at play on Sunday afternoon in who will be calling the defensive plays for the Cowboys as Mike Zimmer is back at the defensive coordinator spot.

It is a risky proposition at best to take anything serious out of the preseason, but Zimmer’s unit did impress throughout the exhibition portion of the calendar. Obviously we hope that this standard follows suit throughout the regular season, but the Cowboys defense has been tremendously successful over the last three years. The bar for expectation is high.

For what it’s worth, one of Zimmer’s former pupils is expecting the best. You see, Cleveland Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski served under Zimmer before he came Cleveland’s head coach on staff with the Minnesota Vikings. Stefanski was the offensive coordinator. Zimmer is obviously a defensive mind. The former spoke on Monday about how he is expecting the best that his former boss has to offer.

“Preseason obviously is not a great indication for any team in terms of the scheme. Coach Zim, obviously I know really well, is an outstanding football coach so we know that we’ll have our work cut out for us. Personnel wise… they have a bunch of really, really good players from the d-line back through the secondary.”

Stefanski and Zimmer have squared off once before as the Browns visited the Vikings in 2021. Cleveland won that game, a low-scoring affair, 14-17.

It seems the Browns are not taking any chances in getting overwhelmed by the Cowboys as the most important things are on their minds. Guard Wyatt Teller also spoke on Monday and offered high praise for Micah Parsons.

“Really good. Number 11 is, he’s a stud. Very fast. Quick guy. He can play any position he wants and make offensive linemen look silly while doing it. They have base fronts, sub fronts, stuff like that, but for the most part, whenever they want to get crazy… third down, second and long, stuff like that… I feel like the key to it is not letting them get exotic. As long as we stay in front of the chains. Take care of our job on second down, first down, second down and then execute on third down. Hopefully we can keep ‘em at d-end.”

Teller was also asked about Parsons’ candidacy to win Defensive Player of the Year specifically:

“Uhh, I mean, he’s a hell of a player. I think he has the ability to do it. One of my best friends on the team is Myles Garrett so he’s going to have to beat him out. But Myles is, he’s, always looking good. But yea. Micah has all the intangibles, tangibles. He’s a hell of a pass rusher.”

Myles Garrett is the reigning Defensive Player of the Year so it makes sense to defer to him until the title is properly taken from him. Interestingly the worldwide leader has projected Parsons to have the better season.

Sunday will be intense as the games count for the first time this season and neither team wants to start off 0-1. As we will finally have a look at what Zimmer has to offer, we will also finally be able to draw some legitimate conclusions about the defense.