The Dallas Cowboys are ready to open the season against the New York Giants in Week 1 of the NFL, and after an offseason focused on rebuilding their defense, team owner Jerry Jones has high expectations for his squad. In particular, he has complete confidence in Caleb Downs, the team\u2019s first-round draft pick.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the highly anticipated Sunday Night Football matchup, Jones said the young defender is ready to make the jump to the NFL and will not allow the pressure of his debut to impact his performance, according to Joseph Hoyt of The Dallas Morning News.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt won’t be too big for him,\u201d Jones said about Downs. \u201cHe’s got his head on straight. He’ll be able to come out and compete without worrying about first-time jitters in the NFL. We’re really proud to have him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cowboys selected Downs with the No. 11 overall pick in the Draft, making him one of the franchise\u2019s biggest bets to transform a defense that struggled last season. The former Ohio State standout will begin his career as a nickel cornerback, a position that head coach Brian Schottenheimer believes will accelerate his development and allow him to quickly become a key piece of the secondary.<\/p>\n
Downs arrives in Dallas with an impressive college r\u00e9sum\u00e9. He began his career with the Alabama Crimson Tide as a freshman before transferring to Ohio State to play under Ryan Day. Over three seasons, he appeared in 44 games, recording 257 tackles (164 solo), 1.5 sacks, six interceptions, three forced fumbles, and one fumble recovery.<\/p>\n
The defensive back was one of Jerry Jones\u2019 biggest offseason additions to a Cowboys defense that also added talent and experience with pass rushers Rashan Gary and Von Miller, looking to elevate a unit that needs to regain its dominance.<\/p>\n
With the performance he showed at the college level, Caleb Downs has the opportunity to become one of the NFL\u2019s most impactful rookies and one of the foundational pieces of the Cowboys\u2019 new defensive project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Cowboys are ready to open the season against the New York Giants in Week 1 of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-435209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435209","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=435209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}