Tommy: By having a noticeable impact on the defense when he\u2019s on the field. I know, you really can\u2019t get more broad than that, but I\u2019m not going to say he needs to be a Pro Bowler or an All-Pro in his rookie season. He doesn\u2019t have to be. Would it be nice? Sure, but there are enough veterans on this defense to be able to help out around him as he gets his rookie season underway.<\/p>\n
Usually with defensive backs, the less you hear their name being called, the better the game they\u2019re having. You certainly want that to be the case with Downs, but you also want to hear his name over the plays that everyone saw he can make while on the field at Ohio State. That\u2019s what I mean by having a noticeable impact on the defense, and you\u2019re welcome to define that however you want in your own personal expectations for Downs.<\/p>\n
Downs\u2019 ceiling in this defense with Christian Parker is sky high. It seems like the two are almost replicas of one another when it comes to how they view and approach the game of football. I feel that\u2019ll play a big part on Downs\u2019 success early in his career. Will it be evident in Week 1? Maybe, maybe not, but Downs lives up to his first year expectations by being a plus player for this defense, because it\u2019s a unit in need of a lot of plus players.<\/p>\n
Patrik: Living up to the status of being a first-round pick will always be a challenge, and especially if a team traded up in the top-15 to make sure they acquired you. Such is the case for Downs, but I don\u2019t believe he\u2019ll have much of an issue living up to his draft status, even if it takes a couple years. I won\u2019t apply undue pressure in claiming he\u2019ll somehow instantly be an All-Pro defensive back in Year 1, but I believe you\u2019ll see plenty of flashes of that in his game. Downs feels different, in every way, in the last several weeks I\u2019ve had to study his work ethic and demeanor.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s already, almost instantly, become a locker room leader and that\u2019s a large part of what he\u2019ll be accountable for, so go ahead and check that box. What happens on the field will tell the full tale of what he can be in a Cowboys\u2019 uniform, though. Do I expect Downs to be one of the MVPs of training camp, as a rookie? Yes, I actually do. I can easily see him making a list of plays that drop a few jaws, and his passion in-between the lines will be on full display as well. So, how does he live up to the mountain of expectations? By not staring at the mountain, and instead keep his eyes on the playbook and the next play \u2014 the rest will handle itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tommy: By having a noticeable impact on the defense when he\u2019s on the field. I know, you really…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,932,104,103],"class_list":["post-383520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-cowboys-news","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383520","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=383520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}