Dallas Cowboys linebacker Rashan Gary participates in a minicamp practice at The Star on Wednesday, June 17, 2026, in Frisco.
Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News
FRISCO — Jennifer Coney has heard her son, Rashan Gary, speak plans into existence so many times that she has no other choice but to trust him.
Like the time in middle school when he told her he wanted to start playing football, and subsequently explained his reasoning. She couldn’t see it at the time, but he believed he could play in the NFL one day.
Or the time before the NFL draft, when Gary was on the precipice of making his middle school dreams come true. It was then that Gary told his mother that he wanted to put his Michigan degree from the Ross School of Business to good use. He wanted to start his own branding and marketing agency for athletes, including himself. He wanted to start Rashan Gary Sports.
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Before doing so, however, Gary asked his mom a question.
“Mom, you got faith in me?” Coney remembers her son saying at the time. She then responded, “Always.”
Which is why she’s inclined to believe her son’s latest plans, too.
Gary is in the midst of a career transition. The former first-round pick was traded to the Cowboys this offseason after spending the first seven years of his career in Green Bay. He played well with the Packers. He’s had 46.5 career sacks. He earned a trip to the Pro Bowl in 2024. He signed a four-year, $96 million extension in 2023 that allowed him to successfully complete a major goal of his NFL career: Take care of his family.
Heading into his first season in Dallas, Gary’s focus has shifted.
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“I’m trying to be great,” Gary told The Dallas Morning News recently. “That’s my thing. I’m not just here to say I played in the NFL. I want to be a dominant factor. When I hang up my cleats, I want people to say, ‘Man, Rashan Gary was blah, blah, blah,’ whatever the case may be. It’s my legacy. It’s what I’m going to leave my kids. It’s bigger than me now.”
The Cowboys have already seen Gary’s intention in action. They traded a fourth-round pick to Green Bay because they wanted Gary to be the player he’s already been in his career. They told him so right after the trade. That meant being a player who could help them generate a group pass rush, someone who could help their renovated front-seven stop the run and someone who could help mentor young pass rushers like Donovan Ezeiruaku and Malachi Lawrence, one of the team’s two first-round picks this year.
Gary has lived up to the leadership aspirations so far. He believes in early rising and daily trips to the hot and cold tubs at the team facility when he isn’t watching film, going through walkthroughs or working out. He’s been to the postseason six times in seven years and he believes, with the help of other veterans, he can help show the way to the rest of the roster. The Cowboys haven’t been to the playoffs in back-to-back seasons. Currently, less than a third of the Cowboys’ roster has any playoff experience.
“You see what football brings to you, then you understand that you can’t play this game lightly,” Gary said of his message to teammates. “You can never cheat the game, and I’m a big believer in that and the football gods. So just understanding the things that football has brought to me and how it’s changed my life. I owe it all, and that’s all I ask of you.”
Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer recently said that he’s been blown away by Gary’s professionalism, calling the newcomer a “grown-ass man.”
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But Gary’s professionalism was rooted in him long before he became a man.
Coney said she lost her parents when she was young, but they ingrained a lesson in her. They told her to keep her focus in life, no matter what happens. Through the good times and the bad and everywhere in between, it would be consistency that would carry her through.
Coney valued that lesson so much that she implanted it in her son, as well.
Gary remembers the standards his mother set for him early on. Back in middle school, when he told her his NFL aspirations, Gary recalled his mom supporting him, as long as a condition was met. Gary had to keep his grades high if he wanted to play organized sports. He had to put in extra work on the field and off it. Around that time, Gary also was tested and learned he was living with dyslexia. Once he was diagnosed, he knew the path toward being a successful student.
At Michigan, Gary was not only a two-time Big Ten honoree on the field, but he was also a two-time all-conference academic honoree.
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Gary credits the consistency instilled in him by his mother for why he’s made it this far.
“When you have a goal in mind and when you have a mission to complete, it doesn’t matter how you feel,” Gary said. “It’s really just the process over your feelings.”
Coney admits that sometimes her son’s consistent approach even amazes her. The way he approached the rehabilitation from a torn ACL in 2022 was one example. There were times when she wondered if her son was truly doing OK during the tough time, or just acting like it. Gary’s approach worked, though. He went from tearing his ACL during Green Bay’s ninth game in 2022 to returning in time for the start of the 2023 season. Three weeks into that year, Gary had a career-high three sacks against the New Orleans Saints. Coney was there. Both of them still said it’s one of their favorite moments from Gary’s football career thus far.
“I was in the stands just screaming,” she said.
They’re hopeful more moments like that are on the horizon.
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Even heading into his eighth year, Gary considers himself a student of the game. Part of the professionalism that’s blown away coaches can be credited to Gary’s persistent propensity for asking questions.
“Being a leader, you have to be held to the same standard,” Gary said, “so the first thing, from coaches to players, if you feel like I’m short-changing or I can go harder anywhere, please tell me, because it’s a fine line of being great and being a player, and I’m trying to be great.”
Green Bay Packers defensive end Rashan Gary (52) on defense during an NFL game against the Minnesota Vikings, Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025, in Green Bay, Wis.
Jeffrey Phelps/AP
Gary is still trying to get there. He had 7.5 sacks in the first seven games of last season. And though he didn’t record a sack after that, he still kept a similar pace when it came to pressures. Ultimately he finished with 60 pressures, tied for 20th among edge rushers in the league, according to Pro Football Focus. That’s 20 more than former Cowboys edge rusher Jadeveon Clowney had a year ago when he had the most among Cowboys edge rushers.
Gary is hoping to increase those numbers in a place that’s become home for him. Gary has actually lived in the Dallas area for the majority of his NFL career. He worked out in the Dallas area when he was training for the NFL combine. Here, he found a group of coaches and trainers that he really enjoyed, including B.T. Jordan, who was hired as a pass-rush consultant for the Cowboys this season after working previously with the Denver Broncos, the NFL’s leaders in sacks last season. He even met his longtime girlfriend here.
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This season, instead of living in an apartment in Green Bay, he can make the 20-minute drive home from practice to see his family and have a home-cooked meal. Therein lies the counterbalance to Gary’s professionalism. He believes he can give everything to football when he’s at the facility because he can recharge at home. And even when he needs a break from everything else, he’ll occasionally go to the movies by himself, sneaking into the back with his hoodie on and some popcorn.
Coney doesn’t live full time in Dallas. She joked (but was probably serious) that her son broke her heart when he first decided to move full time to Dallas. Maybe that was her son manifesting a reality that hadn’t come true yet, just as he’s done so many times before.
“Everything he wants to accomplish, I believe he will accomplish,” she said, adding the caveat that she says this because she’s seen it and not just because she’s his mother.