OXNARD, Calif. \u2014 Sacks aren’t considered the end-all, be-all statistic in today’s modern NFL world. Advanced analytics would tell you that pressure rate and hurries are a better signal of a good pass rusher.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cowboys<\/a> outside linebacker Donovan Ezeiruaku agrees that sacks aren’t everything, but with one major caveat.\u00a0<\/p>\n “They don’t draft edge rushers to not get any sacks,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n To be fair, Ezeiruaku did have two during his rookie season. It’s also clear he’s confident heading to Year 2 that he can eclipse that substantially.<\/p>\n It’s part of the reason the Cowboys selected Ezeiruaku with their second-round pick in 2025. Ezeiruaku was a standout pass rusher at Boston College. He led the nation with 16.5 sacks in his final collegiate season. Ezeiruaku said it wasn’t easy going from as many sacks as he did in college, to only having two during his rookie season.<\/p>\n “Especially for me the way I take pride in what I do and what I want to do to help this football team,” Ezeiruaku said.<\/p>\n Ezeiruaku did show pass rush promise, even if the sacks weren’t there. He was in the top five among rookies in pressures, win rate, hits and hurries, according to Pro Football Focus.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ezeiruaku is confident that he experienced an NFL learning curve and can apply it. He’s also had some extra teachers. He worked with pass rush consultant B.T. Jordan last off-season, just as he did this off-season. That work has increased since Jordan came to the Cowboys from the Denver Broncos as a consultant, however. Ezeiruaku also pointed to the work of outside linebackers coach Chidera Uzo-Diribe and new outside linebacker Rashan Gary<\/a>, who was named to the team’s leadership committee in his first season with the Cowboys.\u00a0<\/p>\n It also helps that Ezeiruaku feels healthy, too. He had off-season surgery to fix a hip injury that he sustained during the season, though he didn’t specify when. He also wasn’t sure it required surgery until the off-season.<\/p>\n “I feel very explosive,” Ezeiruaku said.\u00a0<\/p>\n And he feels very confident that he can increase his sack numbers, as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OXNARD, Calif. \u2014 Sacks aren’t considered the end-all, be-all statistic in today’s modern NFL world. Advanced analytics would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":395359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,93042,124547],"class_list":["post-395358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-dallas-cowboys","tag-tp-training-camp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395358","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=395358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/395359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}