{"id":357178,"date":"2026-07-01T12:22:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T12:22:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/357178\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T12:22:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T12:22:13","slug":"cowboys-news-dallas-linebacker-going-under-the-radar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/357178\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowboys news: Dallas linebacker going under the radar"},"content":{"rendered":"

20) Aside from Downs, which rookie makes the biggest impact?**<\/p>\n

Patrik:\u00a0My first instinct here is to go with Malachi Lawrence, and I don\u2019t doubt he\u2019ll make an impact in Year 1, but the first year in the league is rarely a breakout campaign for edge rushers \u2014 alongside the fact there are young veterans at the position who will get their shot (such as Sam Williams and James Houston<\/a>). That said, I\u2019m drawing a circle around rookie cornerback\u00a0Devin Moore, and for a couple reasons.<\/p>\n

Positionally speaking, Moore is more of a boundary cornerback than anything, and there have been serious availability issues with DaRon Bland. I am a firm believer Bland can return to form if he can stay healthy, but the foot injury has nagged him. If Bland misses time, it likely thrusts Moore in rotation with Caelen Carson (but Carson is in the final year of his contract). I believe Christian Parker and Ryan Smith want to develop the fourth-rounder to be a longterm solution at boundary CB, the same formula attached to Shavon Revel. Moore might be a pleasant surprise as early as Year 1, in my opinion.<\/p>\n

Tommy:\u00a0Go ahead and call me basic for picking the second first-round pick, but I do think that it\u2019s\u00a0Malachi Lawrence.\u00a0This is a pass rushing unit that has a lot of youth spread around it, and Dallas is banking on that youth to grow up and formulate a strong combination of good pass rushers. Lawrence has all the traits you could want in a pass rusher but may need some time to grow accustomed to NFL play. If he ends up learning and developing at a quicker rate, I think there\u2019s absolutely a world where he\u2019s considered to be the Cowboys\u2019 best pass rusher early in his career.<\/p>\n

For the 2026 season, if there\u2019s noticeable growth and he\u2019s able to at the very least show the flashes of what made Lawrence a first-round pick based on the tape from UCF, I think that makes the biggest impact for Dallas outside of Caleb Downs. The good news for Lawrence in the learning process is I think he\u2019s got a strong group of position coaches around him in OLBs coach Chidera Uzo-Diribe and pass rush specialist consultant BT Jordan to be able to tap into his skillset early and make the necessary tweaks to his game that\u2019ll foster growth.<\/p>\n

Nick:\u00a0Immediately after the draft, I answered a question on here about my favorite Day 2\/3 pick and I went with\u00a0LT Overton<\/a>. So I\u2019m not going to change that answer here. I think it applies just the same because I really like the plan and vision the Cowboys have for Overton. Unlike the other rookies, the Cowboys do have players that play the same spots as Barham, Lawrence, Shelton and Moore.<\/p>\n

But Overton is quite unique in that he\u2019s pretty much the smallest and quickness of the defensive tackles. I get the sense the Cowboys are going to use him on passing downs and he can lean on his pass-rushing skills but from the inside. It won\u2019t surprise me if he can get around the 5-6 sack range even as a rookie. That would be a huge impact and so for that reason, the fact that he already seems to have a carved-out role, that will be my selection here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"20) Aside from Downs, which rookie makes the biggest impact?** Patrik:\u00a0My first instinct here is to go with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[31093,34582,80144,1044,100307,102,113,104,103,10000,17279,7710,99503,18146,126931,44310,88318,80,9970,13599,7001,15421,111390,2696,37633,7698],"class_list":["post-357178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-caelen-carson","tag-caleb-downs","tag-cobie-durant","tag-cowboys","tag-curtis-robinson","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-daron-bland","tag-dee-winters","tag-demarvion-overshown","tag-devin-moore","tag-james-houston","tag-linebacker-position","tag-lt-overton","tag-malachi-lawrence","tag-nfl","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-seattle-seahawks","tag-shavon-revel","tag-special-teams","tag-stanford-cardinal","tag-terrion-arnold","tag-the-cowboys"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357178","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=357178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}