Even with the entirety of the offseason behind us and the 2025 NFL season opener against the Philadelphia Eagles kicking off Thursday night, concerns surrounding the Dallas Cowboys have been slackened much, if any. There’s still quite a bit of mystery surrounding this year’s team throughout the roster, and unfortunately things won’t start to get answered until things actually matter. Typically, that’s what preseason is for.
For whatever reason, the Cowboys decided to sit the majority of their starters
in preseason in favor of evaluating depth players instead. While that’s their prerogative, it may prove to be the wrong move considering their kicking off the season against the defending Super Bowl champions. This decision also prevented us from learning more about this team, which has created some concerns that still need to be answered which are listed below.
Brian Schottenheimer, the play-caller
Schottenheimer is somewhat of a mystery as a play-caller right now. While it’s true he held the title of offensive coordinator the past few seasons in Dallas, Mike McCarthy was still the one calling the plays. Schottenheimer has past experience as an OC, but that was a few years ago with the Seattle Seahawks (2018-2020). Fortunately for him he has some of the best weapons at his disposal that Dallas had in quite some time, but can he get the best out of them? After keeping things vanilla in the preseason, it’s going to be interesting how he does in Week 1.
Javonte Williams and the RB rotation
On paper the Cowboys running back room doesn’t look all that inspiring, and nothing that has happened throughout the offseason, especially in preseason, inspires hope this group can be any better than they were last season. Javonte Williams didn’t play a single snap in preseason and both Miles Sanders and Jaydon Blue only played a handful. Sadly, none of the three have really stood out so far. As a result, there’s been a lot of talk about Dallas trading for RB help. That won’t help in Week 1 though. That means someone needs to step up.
Kenny Clark and stopping the run
Part of the compensation the Cowboys received by trading Micah Parsons away to the Green Bay Packers was DT Kenny Clark. He is expected to immediately upgrade Dallas’ run defense, despite only being with the organization for a short amount of time. He is a proven commodity and a former Pro Bowl player, but he alone can’t improve what was one of the worst run defense is in the league a season ago. Kicking off the 2025 NFL season against a run-heavy team like the Eagles will be a good test for them. Hopefully, things will look much improved.
The aftermath of the Micah Parsons trade
In trading away Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers, the Cowboys not only lost one of the best defensive players in the entire league, but also one of their few difference-makers on that side of the ball. It’s nearly impossible to replace a player of Parsons’ caliber and it’s going to be really interesting to see how Matt Eberflus navigates around this issue in his first-year as Dallas’ new DC. Minus Dante Fowler and even James Houston, this is a rather young and somewhat inexperienced group who all need to step up their game this season.
The depth and health at the CB position
The health and depth at the CB position for the Cowboys has been a concern for the majority of the offseason and continues to be so heading into the season opener against the Eagles. While it’s encouraging Trevon Diggs seems to be close to returning to the starting lineup, he’s still likely a few weeks away until he’s 100%. If he plays he’ll likely be on a snap count, which means more pressure will be placed on DaRon Bland and Kaiir Elam to hold down the fort for a little while. Who picks up the slack in Diggs’ absence in the meantime is the ultimate mystery.
