Through two preseason games, the Dallas Cowboys defense has looked a bit discombobulated. Similar to 2024, the Cowboys defense has struggled to stop the run, but with DaRon Bland and Trevon Diggs on the sideline, slowing down the opposing team\u2019s passing game has been just as much of a struggle. While the coverage unit is expected to have some issues, the lack of pass rush has been a concerning development for a team that has been rumored to have one of the better pass rush units in the National Football League.<\/p>\n
With Micah Parsons still without a new deal and holding out during the Cowboys training camp practices, the Cowboys have relied on Marshawn Kneeland, Sam Williams, Donovan Ezeiruaku, and James Houston heavily through their two preseason games. Houston, the newest addition to the Dallas defensive line room, has been the most impressive edge rusher so far in the Cowboys preseason matchups, but the others have struggled to generate any consistent pressure. So far, they don\u2019t have a single sack between them in the preseason.<\/p>\n
Even when\/if Parsons returns, the Cowboys will heavily rely on Kneeland, Williams, and Ezeiruaku to be key contributors on defense in 2025 behind the anticipated starters \u2014 Micah Parsons and Dante Fowler.<\/p>\n
From the mouth of the Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer, the Cowboys are currently playing things pretty \u201cvanilla\u201d on both sides of the ball, but with some key contributors along the defensive line struggling to generate pressure throughout the preseason, that could be a bad sign for the Cowboys ability to generate pressure during the regular season, even when Micah Parsons returns to the lineup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Through two preseason games, the Dallas Cowboys defense has looked a bit discombobulated. Similar to 2024, the Cowboys…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":153444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,55426,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-153443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-cowboys-preseason","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115044876666974095","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}