{"id":264152,"date":"2026-04-24T09:37:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T09:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/264152\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T09:37:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T09:37:23","slug":"caleb-downs-is-cowboys-best-safety-in-a-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/264152\/","title":{"rendered":"Caleb Downs is Cowboys’ best safety in a generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Dallas Cowboys<\/a> had an eventful first day at the NFL draft on Thursday.<\/p>\n

SportsDay’s columnists and beat writers grade the Cowboys’ moves from the first round.<\/p>\n

The Cowboys didn\u2019t stand pat, but they didn\u2019t travel too far on the draft board, up one spot for S Caleb Downs, down three spots for DE Malachi Lawrence of UCF. Fixing a defense that surrendered 500 points is an ongoing project but the idea of Rashan Gary<\/a>, Lawrence and Donovan Ezeiruaku as your edge rushers and Downs and former Cardinal Jalen Thompson at safety sounds a lot better than what they trotted out last year. Weird to trade with Philly and help Eagles get a WR but they might have gotten Makai Lemon at 23, anyway. Still very short at linebacker.<\/p>\n

The Cowboys landed my favorite player in the draft <\/a>in Ohio State safety Caleb Downs. They needed an instant impact defender and he could be exactly that for new defensive coordinator Christian Parker<\/a>. They then traded back three spots to get two fourth-round picks and ammo for another potential Day 2 pick, while still acquiring one of the fastest edge rushers in the draft. It couldn’t have gone much better.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Cowboys didn’t have to trade up much to get one of the top defensive players on their board, and their best safety in at least a generation, plus they gave themselves more material to work with on Days 2 and 3. Now, if they can get a starting linebacker and maybe a back-up corner, their draft work is mostly done.<\/p>\n

The Cowboys made two draft-day trades: one to move up for an elite talent, safety Caleb Downs, and one to move down, which also got them a pair of fourth-round picks, to select defensive end Malachi Lawrence. Both players fill needs for the defense and also bring some versatility with Lawrence showing the ability to play in multiple schemes.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Dallas Cowboys had an eventful first day at the NFL draft on Thursday. SportsDay’s columnists and beat writers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,5964,93042,88229,89124],"class_list":{"0":"post-264152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-headlines","10":"tag-dallas-news","11":"tag-listicle","12":"tag-tp-dallas-cowboys","13":"tag-tp-nfl","14":"tag-tp-nfl-draft"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}