The wounds had just healed. We all had moved on from the 2025 Dallas Cowboys and their historically bad defense. The team seemed to do this as well, especially with regards to action. The Cowboys front office operated this entire offseason, as it seemed, with a pledge for things to never be as bad as they just were.
Mission failed. At least so far.
Sunday night was a total and complete disaster did not go well for the Cowboys. In their first opportunity to prove that things were different, they gave
life to the notion that maybe the present is simply more of the past.
To make matters worse, unlike last season the offense is now under a bit of fire. They were not as bad as their defensive counterparts at MetLife Stadium (hardly saying anything), but ultimately the collective team has apparently taken an entire step back.
Here is our stock report from it.
Stock Up: Tyler Guyton
We are starting with positives, there are a few, and need to give credit to someone who had as much negative press as anybody when training camp began: Tyler Guyton.
NFL Pro’s insights noted after the game that Guyton recorded 20 pass-blocking matchups against Brian Burns in this game. He did not allow a single pressure. Overall Guyton allowed just a pair of pressures on 36 total pass blocks in the game. He lived up to the challenge. That is great news.
Stock Up: Caleb Downs
It is obviously difficult to feel positive about much on defense, but Caleb Downs was as advertised.
The sack he made was the clear flash, but he held his own and was hardly why the defense got worked the way that it did. The sky is very high for him as we all believed.
Stock Up: T.J. Bass
It was around a week ago when we all found out that Tyler Smith would miss at least a month due to his thumb injury. Given that Smith is the best interior lineman in the NFL, there was a natural level of concern.
Give T.J. Bass credit, though. Many expected him to be serviceable in Smith’s absence, the Cowboys did place a second-round tender on him after all, and he was. That is hardly an easy thing to do.
Stock Down: Christian Parker
You would have a very difficult time finding someone who had a longer honeymoon after initially joining the Cowboys.
From January to Sunday afternoon, Christian Parker was heralded. He came from a strong lineage, said all of the right things, and he was given plenty of new tools to reconstruct the defense that was so bad last season. Sunday night was just one game and he could still wind up fulfilling the proverbial prophecy, but wow his group was overwhelmed.
Grading the game in a vacuum it was about as big of a failure as it possibly could have been. Time to move on.
Stock Down: Javonte Williams
There are only so many ways to say this, and we have all said it:
What are you doing taunting? In general! Down by a touchdown still?
Responses I’ve seen to this vary, but the most defensive of Williams seem to be that the NFL is soft and that taunting penalties are lame. Fine if you feel that way. But Williams knows the rules.
Arguably more importantly, Brian Schottenheimer knows the rules. They all have to operate within them and didn’t, and it literally costed the team a point.
Stock Down: Brian Schottenheimer
Williams was not the only player to commit a silly penalty. Recall that DeMarvion Overshown hit Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart clearly out of bounds early in the game. These are silly and avoidable mistakes.
Those things start with the head coach, and Brian Schottenheimer has also been riding a bit of a positive wave for the last few months. I’ll speak for myself and say that I am willing to give him a bit of a mulligan for last season with how the front office went about handing things to him, but I put zero blame on the front office here in 2026. They have done their job. This is on the people who coach and play the games.
Schotty has to get things in check as soon as possible.
Stock Down: Brandon Aubrey
It feels unfair to penalize Brandon Aubrey for missing an extra point after Javonte Williams pushed him back, but he is now paid very handsomely. Expectations rise when things like that happen.
What’s more is this continues to pick at the notion that maybe Aubrey has lost his fastball a little bit. He’s not always down the middle anymore on his kicks, even when making them. Concern feels somewhat warranted.
Stock Down: DeMarvion Overshown
Let us first say that we hope DeMarvion Overshown recovers quickly from his hamstring injury. Before he left the game though, Overshown was not exactly shining for on-field performance reasons. He had the penalty and was then critically missing just about every read. He was a high point of weakness in the heart of the defense.
We are almost two years removed from when Overshown really shined for the Cowboys. Right now it is looking like this may not be in the cards. We will see.
Stock Down: The entire pass rush
Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart threw for 3+ touchdowns without any interceptions for the first time in his career on Sunday night. This is only his second NFL season and it’s not like he even started every game last year, but obviously that is pretty damning of the Cowboys defense.
Consider that the highest point of pressure came from Caleb Downs as noted. The Cowboys were not able to generate any frustration for Dart up front and that inability led to them getting pushed around all game long.
Where were Donovan Ezeriuaku and Rashan Gary? How were they not more frustrating to deal with?
Stock Down: Division dominance
Objectively speaking, the Cowboys have beaten up on the NFC East for much of the Dak Prescott era. Specifically, they have pushed around the Giants whenever they wanted.
This was just one game to be clear, but it was not the meaningless contest that Dallas lost to New York in Week 18 last year. The Cowboys gave this game all of their might and the new-look Giants humbled them mightily.
Next week will bring another test of this variety. The Washington Commanders took the Philadelphia Eagles the distance a few hours before the Cowboys failed against the Giants, and one of Washington and Dallas will fall to 0-2 by this time next week.
Who will it be?
