{"id":784278,"date":"2026-05-09T13:03:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T13:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/784278\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T13:03:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T13:03:28","slug":"cowboys-news-caleb-downs-is-turning-heads-in-dallas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/784278\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowboys news: Caleb Downs is turning heads in Dallas"},"content":{"rendered":"

And they were aware, too, especially after that disastrous 2025 defensive season when they merely nibbled at a vacancy fix, signing rotational Bears unrestricted free agent Jack Sanborn<\/a>; having traded for more of an outside linebacker in Kenneth Murray<\/a>, who was forced to move inside out of sheer necessity when Sanborn was injured; drafting Florida linebacker Shemar James<\/a>, but 21 years old with just three years of college experience and having to learn on the job; swinging an in-season trade for veteran Logan Wilson<\/a> on Nov. 7, who had but one start in seven games played before moving on; and then awaiting the return of DeMarvion Overshown<\/a> from end of the 2024 season\u2019s ACL surgery.<\/p>\n

Nothing seemed to fire.<\/p>\n

Then in the 2026 NFL Draft, even though sitting at No.12 in the first round, nothing at inside linebacker seemed to fall their way. Within the first 10 picks, gone were two potential candidates, Arvell Reese to the Giants at No. 5 and Sonny Styles<\/a> to Washington at No. 7, though both expected to be off the board that early. And by then, none of the other linebacker candidates, such as Jacob Rodriguez, C.J. Allen, Josiah Trotter or Anthony Hill, were evaluated higher than second-round picks.<\/p>\n

Also, no sense reaching, not when an expected top-five choice Caleb Downs was sitting there heading into Miami<\/a>\u2019s 11th pick in the first, the Cowboys not hesitating one bit nor willing to risk losing Downs by trading up that one spot to assure he was their guy.<\/p>\n

And without a second-round pick and having traded down from No. 20 in the first to 23, they still couldn\u2019t qualify taking any of those other linebackers that high when they already had their eye on defensive end Malachi Lawrence, owner of a higher grade. And then when those aforementioned linebackers with second-round grades began falling in the second like trees in a storm, the Cowboys sprang into action.<\/p>\n

Just a wee bit before the second hour of Round 2, the Cowboys traded their own fifth-round draft choice to San Francisco<\/a> for Dee Winters, the linebacker having started in 27 of his 32 games played for the Niners over the past two years. There you go, Winters immediatelybecoming one potential starting inside linebacker, along with a finally healthy Overshown in this his third offseason since drafted in the third round of 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And they were aware, too, especially after that disastrous 2025 defensive season when they merely nibbled at a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":784279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,29841,140356,40676,320811,237669,106732,48219,1596,8998,33856,142851,123226,35770,301068,35772,136785,282471,29329,35764,35756,319356,173412,380,4716,75780,1311,1105,45668,2750,35771,57461,358,29842,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-784278","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-brian-schottenheimer","10":"tag-caelen-carson","11":"tag-caleb-downs","12":"tag-chris-jones-imagn","13":"tag-christian-parker","14":"tag-cobie-durant","15":"tag-colts","16":"tag-dallas","17":"tag-dallas-cowboys","18":"tag-daron-bland","19":"tag-dee-winters","20":"tag-defensive-coordinator","21":"tag-demarvion-overshown","22":"tag-devin-moore","23":"tag-jack-sanborn","24":"tag-jaishawn-barham","25":"tag-jalen-thompson","26":"tag-javonte-williams","27":"tag-jaydon-blue","28":"tag-kenneth-murray","29":"tag-kenny-moore","30":"tag-logan-wilson","31":"tag-miami","32":"tag-new-york-giants","33":"tag-nick-harris","34":"tag-philadelphia","35":"tag-philadelphia-eagles","36":"tag-rookie-minicamp","37":"tag-san-francisco","38":"tag-shemar-james","39":"tag-sonny-styles","40":"tag-texas","41":"tag-the-cowboys","42":"tag-tx","43":"tag-united-states","44":"tag-united-states-of-america","45":"tag-unitedstates","46":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","47":"tag-us","48":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784278","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=784278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}