By most accounts, Blue wasn’t ready to go as a rookie. He owns that and professes that he’s already off to be a better start to the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
“Just looking back on the things I didn’t do too well and some of the reasons I wasn’t on the field last year,” Blue said, “taking the stuff my coaches were saying and making sure I apply them, whether that’s this offseason or when I’m by myself.”<\/p>\n
Boasting a 4.38 40-yard dash at the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine, Blue didn’t get out of the blocks until Week 5 last year when he made his pro debut. He sputtered to 7 yards on four carries during a 37-22 win over the New York Jets.<\/p>\n
Williams had a pair of touchdowns and ran for 135 yards in the same game.<\/p>\n
Williams’ starts (16), carries (252), yards (1,201), rushing touchdowns (11), scrimmage TDs (13), touches (287), and yard per carry (4.8) were each career bests forged during his first season for Dallas.<\/p>\n
Williams, 26, was promptly rewarded for his efforts, inking a three-year, $24 million extension<\/a>.<\/p>\n So where does that leave Blue?<\/p>\n Well, he’s likely to compete for the RB2 spot<\/a> against Malik Davis<\/a> and Phil Mafah<\/a>. While that will play out \u2013 just as the QB2 battle between Joe Milton III<\/a> and Sam Howell<\/a> will \u2013 in training camp and the preseason, Blue put his best feet forward in the spring, according to his head coach.<\/p>\n “He’s doing great,” Brian Schottenheimer said, via The Athletic. “He came back with a different look than what he had his rookie year. I think most rookies have to figure it out. We had a very candid conversation at the exit interviews. We kind of put it all out there, put all the cards on the table. He didn’t like being inactive, and I was very honest with my opinion of why he wasn’t active.<\/p>\n “We had some really great conversations. He took that, he ingested it, took it in and he’s come back with a great look on his face and a great work ethic. (His) intelligence is off the charts. I mean, the guy is football brilliant. He really is. Obviously, his speed and his explosiveness. He’s going to be a huge part of what we want to do, but he’s got to continue doing his part, which he’s doing great right now. I would say (he’s) night and day from where he was last year.”<\/p>\n The 22-year-old Blue has the receiving potential and game-breaking ability to be a stellar change of pace from Williams.<\/p>\n If he can earn the reps this summer, Blue might well leave the bitterness of his first season in the dust of his second.<\/p>\n “I use it as motivation,” Blue said of his debut season. “Of course I want to be on the field. But at the same time, I know this is the NFL, so any week things can change. I just want to make sure that this year and upcoming years, that’s not a problem for me.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By most accounts, Blue wasn’t ready to go as a rookie. He owns that and professes that he’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[6255,1816,46816,43111,3,349,6257,99],"class_list":["post-745187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-around-the-nfl","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-javonte-williams","tag-jaydon-blue","tag-news","tag-nfl","tag-no-minute","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}