It is important to have a spectrum of sorts. We all have hopes, wants, wishes, dreams, ambitions, you name it. There are ways that we’d all like to see this upcoming Dallas Cowboys season go. In a perfect world, stop me if you have heard this before, this would be the one that finally delivers the ring, the one ring to rule them all, to Mordor.
You never know, though. Seasons can go a number of different ways because they are built upon a number of different things, including a number of different players.
There are always a wide range of outcomes for these sorts of things and today we want to focus on the player portion of it all.
The following players have the widest possible range of outcomes for the Cowboys.
Shavon Revel
So much hinges on Shavon Revel taking a leap.
On some level I am willing to trust that the Cowboys did not do a ton at cornerback over the offseason because of Christian Parker. Perhaps he provides an added boost to everyone in the room so adding new talent is not as necessary given his specific set of skills as a coach.
But Revel really needs to be the player who the Cowboys thought they were getting a bargain with during last year’s NFL draft. The top of the cornerback position is hardly stable, and right now Revel is occupying a bit of the middle. It is certainly possible that he could emerge to the top himself by playing like the player Dallas thought they were getting, but is it not also equally (maybe not equally, but you get the point) possible that he could be another bargain that fizzled out?
This is one of the biggest twists to the season that we are going to watch unfold.
DaRon Bland
So about the top of the cornerback room… yea.
Last year it felt like the Cowboys gave DaRon Bland the extension they did just to accelerate everybody forgetting about the fact that they traded away Micah Parsons. It was nice and practical on some level, but it was a serious commitment to someone who hasn’t looked anything like his 2023 self since, well, 2023.
It’s doubtful that we ever see that version of Bland ever again so it’s hard to consider that possibility within the range of outcomes. It certainly wouldn’t be farfetched to get a very legitimate version of him though, like the one the team had in 2022, but similarly it also wouldn’t be shocking if he faded further into the abyss.
Donovan Ezeiruaku
It feels fair to say that there is a world where Donovan Ezeiruaku is the best pass rusher on the Dallas Cowboys. Heck, maybe there is a world where he is a top 10 pass rusher.
Ezeiruaku stormed on the scene in training camp last year, but obviously everything about the Cowboys defense (and the Parsons trade) broke the second the regular season actually started. On some level we can give people like Ezeiruaku a mulligan for their involvement.
That is no longer the case. The defense has been outfitted very differently and there is as strong of a presence along the interior as there ever has been by way of Quinnen Williams. No one is expecting Ezeiruaku to be anything specific, but he has to live up to his second-round billing.
And he could! That feels probable, actually. But when you say things like “second-round pick” and “Dallas Cowboys” you have wounds from the past that make you wonder if it is worth just never actually selecting anyone there again.
It would be a real bitter pill to swallow if he was unable to take that step and if he was just another second-round miss from the team. This season is going to tell us a lot which of them it really is.
