On Tuesday against the Los Angeles Rams, the Dallas Cowboys showed that the buzz around them to start training camp shouldn’t be looked at as a mirage. The Dallas offense and defense won their fair share of battles against Los Angeles and weren’t just bulldozed like they were when the Rams visited Oxnard, CA last year.
After taking a day to comb through the social media notes and practice recaps from beat reporters, here are some of the biggest next-day thoughts to take from the Cowboys-Rams scrimmage
and what it means moving forward:
Tyler Guyton continues to build confidence
With all 11 starters returning on offense for Dallas, there weren’t many question marks heading into training camp like there were in 2025. The most important question that needed to be answered is where Tyler Guyton is in his development. Tuesday should give fans hope that things continue to move in the right direction.
Guyton was praised by many for how he handled the Rams edge players when they rushed the quarterback and in the run game. Granted, Myles Garrett was watching from the sidelines, so Guyton wasn’t tested by the best pass rusher in the league. However, it’s still positive to hear that Guyton not only looks stronger after his work this offseason, but is taking the positive reps we’ve seen in camp and bringing them over to face other competition.
Terence Steele has to fix some things
On the opposite side, Terence Steele did not have a great day against the Rams. On 105.3 The Fan, Voch Lombardi talked about what he saw from the Cowboys right tackle and it wasn’t a glowing review.
Is it a five-alarm fire? It shouldn’t be because Byron Young is the Rams’ second-best pass rusher next to Garrett. However, a team’s second-best rusher can’t look like an All-Pro if the Cowboys are looking to replicate what they did last year on offense.
Maybe in passing situations this year, the Cowboys keep Brevyn Spann-Ford tied to the hip pocket of Steele to chip the rusher and allow him to get an extra step on a defender. At the end of the day, Terence Steele might be the offensive line’s fifth-best lineman, and that’s okay. As long as the Cowboys aren’t naïve to that fact and can game plan accordingly on game day, it should be fine. Steele has a few more weeks to show Tuesday’s practice was just a blip.
Is the Justin Barron hype real?
Maybe it was the inspiration from Luke Kuechly being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame over the weekend that caused Justin Barron to have a breakout scrimmage. The second-year, undrafted linebacker had not one, not two, but three interceptions against the Rams. One of them came against the starters and Matthew Stafford.
What does that mean moving forward? Well, Barron has been in a rotation at linebacker for all of camp with the second- and third-team defense. The top three backers on the team are pretty much set in DeMarvion Overshown, Dee Winters, and Jaishawn Barham. However, the fourth and potential fifth spots are open for grabs.
Curtis Robinson, a veteran who was signed before camp, was getting reps with the second team as the Mike linebacker in Barham’s absence. Having a capable backup at that spot is too important for Christian Parker’s defense, so if Robinson is being trusted with those duties, it might give him the leg up in spot No. 4.
That means Barron might be fighting with Shemar James for that final spot in the linebacker room. James has the draft capital invested in him as a second-year player who led the team in tackles as a rookie. However, James hasn’t shown up in practice the way Barron did on Tuesday.
The biggest test will come in the preseason games, and both James and Barron will get every opportunity to play. Then we’ll know for sure if Barron is another home run from undrafted free agency or if he’s another training camp darling at linebacker.
The Cowboys dynamic trio
It was a back-and-forth scrimmage from both offenses, but the highlights from CeeDee Lamb, George Pickens, and Ryan Flournoy can make for some scary acquisitions. Not in a bad way. Like in a “Do the Cowboys have the best trio of wideouts in the NFL?” kind of way.
Lamb and Flournoy found the end zone while Pickens was terrorizing Rams defenders all day. The Cowboys have clearly been working on their red zone offense in training camp, as it was the one black mark on their stellar performance from 2025. Dallas’ red zone efficiency was near the bottom half of the league at 56.9 percent.
In a tight-quarters situation like playing in the red zone usually is, Brian Schottenheimer needs answers. If Pickens is going to be doubled down there, then Lamb and Flournoy need to win one-on-one. If all three are blanketed one-on-one, then Jake Ferguson needs to beat the linebacker or safety that’s rolling in his direction.
The offensive retreat to Park City, UT seems to be paying dividends for the Cowboys offense in training camp. On Tuesday, it was just another reason to buy into the hype around Dallas’ dynamic trio and how they can bring this offense to even greater heights than where they were last year.
Brian Schottenheimer’s culture is growing
To close out practice, the Cowboys got together for some extra conditioning. Schottenheimer has been having Dallas run sprints at the end of practice, not for disciplinary reasons, but to get his guys ready for the long season and be the best-conditioned team in the NFL. Schottenheimer has also talked about his mission to build the best culture in American sports. On Tuesday, it was a blending of the two.
Dak Prescott told the media that he and DeMarvion Overshown came together and got the offense and defense to do the extra conditioning. This wasn’t something Schottenheimer made the call on; it was a player-driven move. One could look at it and say it’s corny for Dallas to do it in front of the Rams as they’re walking off the field, but the bigger takeaway should be that Schottenheimer’s culture is now self-sustaining.
Players taking the lead and doing this on their own shows everything he’s trying to build in Dallas is working and that the team is buying into it. If they didn’t do their usual conditioning after practice, or only half the team did it, it would raise some eyebrows. In this case, it showcases that things are coming together as a team in Dallas.
