Blogging The Boys
Several intriguing things came to light this week.
The middle linebackers
At this stage of the offseason, it’s difficult to read what anything means when seeing players at certain positions or where they sit on the depth chart.
The Cowboys are looking for a middle linebacker. It’s not so much finding one in free agency or in the NFL draft, where the team couldn’t secure one, but what it looks like on the current roster.
During Thursday’s practice, Curtis Robinson and Shemar James were getting snaps at middle linebacker. What was interesting for both is that Robinson is listed as an outside linebacker. James was paired with Dee Winters during team drills.
Winters, acquired in a trade, played off-the-ball linebacker with the 49ers and was supposed to get middle linebacker snaps. That still may be the case, but with the media watching, it was James getting the calls.
Changing the offseason schedule
When the Cowboys began their voluntary offseason program this spring, coach Brian Schottenheimer decided to shorten it by a week, from nine to eight weeks this year.
The offseason program takes place in three phases, and the first phase typically starts during the NFL draft process. Schottenheimer moved that back a week. In the past, rookies would join the veterans in the offseason program during phase two.
Schottenheimer didn’t want his coaches to be distracted with preparing for the draft and getting with veterans at the same time.
One of the biggest differences in the lost week is the review days. The Cowboys previously would have nine install practices then three review days during OTAs. The lost week eliminated the review days. So instead of a review day, the Cowboys conduct phase two of the offseason program for a day, which consists of individual drills and walkthrough sessions.
“Some of the young players are spinning a little bit, it’s moving fast for them,” Schottenheimer said. “We don’t set the installation to [the rookies]; we set it to the veterans.”
Christian Parker has his players fired up to play in his scheme.
In 2026, the Cowboys’ defense will look completely different than the year before. Not just from a personnel standpoint, but schematically under new defensive coordinator Christian Parker.
In their short time working together, Clark has recognized that the little things are a big emphasis for what Parker wants to do.
“Just the attention to detail,” Clark said. “This defense is going to be huge on the details, huge on pre-snap and all that kind of stuff. All that stuff is going to be really good for us. We’ve got a lot of smart players on all three levels of the defense,...
