Dallas City News

Ahead of this year’s free agency period, defensive end appeared to be a position the Cowboys could keep as a strength of their defense while transitioning from Dan Quinn to Mike Zimmer as coordinator. Knowing the team prioritizes retaining their own free agents while equally counting on homegrown talent to develop instead of overpaying outside players, Dallas had choices to make with two pass rushers on expiring deals in Dante Fowler Jr. and Dorance Armstrong. Both players opted to follow Quinn, and the money, to Washington, and the Cowboys sat on their hands in trying to replace either of the pair that accounted for 11.5 of the team’s 46 sacks a year ago. On Sunday, this equation changed even further for the worse, as the Cowboys also lost third-year DE Sam Williams to an ACL tear at practice. Williams had 4.5 sacks in 2023 after totaling four his rookie season.

The year three jump paired with an expected boost in playing time thanks to the loss of players ahead of him on the depth chart over his first two seasons were both things the team was banking heavily on for 2024.

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Williams also played more than half the team’s special teams snaps in 15 games last year, making this an even more devastating loss for the Cowboys in two phases of the game. The Cowboys defense had done what they could up to this point of training camp to stand out without any padded practices, but the time was quickly approaching for players like Williams to start showing their potential with Dallas expected to have their first padded practice on Tuesday. Instead, this will quickly become the first opportunity for the coaching staff to evaluate how big of a need defensive end is without Williams, and what can be done about finding depth in the remaining free agency or trade market.

The Cowboys still need to add a veteran. There are some free agent names available, with the most noticeable being Carl Lawson and Yannick Ngakoue. Dallas certainly needs to pick up the phone and find a way to patch up this hole on the edge quickly.

Carl Lawson and Yannick Ngakoue are potential options the Cowboys could bring in to have at least one more dependable player at the position they just lost a projected starter.

Though it’s easy to blame the Cowboys own trust in their crop of talent for getting them in this position where the loss of Williams feels so significant here in late July, it shouldn’t come as any major shock when they do more of the same with evaluating their remaining pass rush depth before considering any moves. This is not only because the team spent a premium pick on Western Michigan DE Marshawn Kneeland at 56th overall in the second round of April’s draft, but others like Chauncey Golston and Villiami Fehoko that haven’t had an opportunity like this for extended playing time at any point in their young careers.

Monitoring what the Cowboys do to replace one of their most skilled and quick upfield pass rushers may also be some of the best insight into exactly how a veteran coordinator like Zimmer, who was out of professional football entirely last year, actually plans on lining up this Cowboys defense. The Cowboys did benefit from having a host of pass rushers on the field all together under Quinn, but were left exposed against the run far too many times in those looks to not warrant a change of philosophy. A player like Williams is still a major loss for any defensive coordinator trying to navigate a scheme change with a new roster, but not one that Zimmer should feel overwhelmed by as the Cowboys are still focused on improving on the interior with second-year draft pick Mazi Smith bulking up at DT and Osa Odighizuwa able to push the pocket. There simply is no way around the fact that without Williams for the entirety of the season, the Cowboys will have a harder time getting to the quarterback than they were counting on with him, but the overall strengths and weaknesses of this defense remain similar.

Mike Zimmer, one of the originators of defensive misdirection, hasn’t lost his touch nor desire to keep the quarterback and offensive coordinator guessing. On more than one occasion on Day 3, in the mock game, Zimmer brought down a safety who showed blitz before bailing in coverage (ex: Bell dropped down then bailed out to single high) and LBs were used the same when there was a 3LB set (one such package featured Eric Kendricks, Marist Liufau and Demarion Overshown); but they didn’t always bail, and that’s the problem QBs are up against versus Zimmer.

One of the few nuggets from Oxnard that has been noted about the Cowboys defensive approach is more disguised looks from this athletic group of linebackers. Simulating pressures similar to how the Cowboys may have done under Quinn with defensive ends like Williams standing up on the second level pre-snap, but with players equally capable of dropping into coverage like Marist Liufau and Demarvion Overshown, could be one of the most important components of the Cowboys defense moving forward to at least give opposing offenses the threat of QB pressure.

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Of course, including one of the best pass rushers in the entire league with Micah Parsons in any of these looks is a great luxury to have through all of this, as Parsons has been seen playing some off-ball linebacker early in camp. Even without Williams, the Cowboys do not have a shortage of players that can win one-on-one matchups up front or read plays swiftly to take advantage of confusion from the offense to finish plays, and creating such opportunities for not only Parsons needs to remain a point of emphasis for this developing defense.

Pass rush opportunities are created when defenses can put an offense behind the chains, typically by stopping early down runs or forcing incompletions in the secondary. The Cowboys are already showing they have the players to continue doing the latter under Zimmer, while working on finding the best lineup that can stand up to the run. These reps that the Cowboys would have loved to see Williams get a chance at are now up for grabs, making defensive end a bit of a surprise position group when it comes to competition – quickly joining the ranks of offensive line, wide receiver, and running back as some of the most fierce in a camp that’s still just begun.

The Cowboys have a long way to go to figure out what their team identity will be in 2024, and unfortunately they’ll be doing so without former second-round pick Sam Williams factoring in at all. There is a lot to be learned about how this team feels about their other defensive linemen on the roster, Zimmer’s scheme, and how sound their free agency approach partly responsible for leaving them with this hole on the depth chart is in the coming days from Oxnard.