Step number one of two is complete for the week when it comes to the Dallas Cowboys competing against the NFC West, the division with the best winning percentage in football a season ago. The Cowboys visited Los Angeles to scrimmage against the Rams on Tuesday, and the football-ism that defense travels applied for Christian Parker’s defense going up against Sean McVay’s offense.
Step number two of this week’s journey will be the preseason opener at the reigning Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks.
Before fully turning the page into that matchup, let’s take a deeper look at how the Cowboys matched up with the Rams.
The loudest noise coming out of this scrimmage was made by the Dallas defense, in some very key areas when it comes to questions we had about the defense and the answers they showed.
Since before the draft, what the Cowboys were going to do about the true linebacker position, and not the outside pass rushing linebacker spot, has been a major question. Through all of the recent scheme changes, this has likely been the position that’s gone through the most turmoil with wildly different philosophies about what the LB personnel should look like. Let’s face it, this group hit rock bottom under Matt Eberflus last year, and was likely the face of the historically bad 2025 defense, with linebackers getting completely torched in coverage and missing tackles/taking bad angles in the run game being a snap-by-snap occurrence.
The concern level was so high at linebacker that some draft projections had the Cowboys taking a player like CJ Allen or Jacob Rodriguez. Instead, the Cowboys waited until the 92nd overall pick to add a tweener-type linebacker Jaishawn Barham, who didn’t even participate in the Rams scrimmage, and introduced the world to Justin Barron while also seeing Dee Winters start to assert himself. The Cowboys are really maximizing what they have to work with on defense right now under this new coaching staff, and that showed against the Rams.
Barron had three interceptions on the day, becoming the latest player to help prove that Christian Parker is on a whole different level of defensive masterminding for the Cowboys in his first year (and first ever time) as a defensive coordinator. Parker has embraced working with players that were already here before his hiring, even at the undrafted free agent level like with Barron, as well as safety Julius Wood.
Dallas has also stepped out of their normal comfort zone to hand pick scheme-specific fits for Parker, and this Rams scrimmage helped prove that the depth chart on defense doesn’t just look drastically different from a year ago, it feels and most importantly plays different. The way players with potential in the secondary are also hitting the ground running under Parker’s coaching, like Shavon Revel Jr. and Caleb Downs, checks an early box that defense can be a positive factor.
Revel finished plays against the Rams, which is a great sign for so many reasons. First and foremost, it was exactly what Parker recently said he was looking for in the next steps of the year two cornerback’s development. Second, it makes us feel good about the Cowboys star-studded receiving group, as they’ve been the ones consistently finishing catches against Revel in drills, but that didn’t last against the Rams.
With Barron and Winters patrolling the middle of the field, and the Cowboys having a plethora of players that can interchange between the second and third level like Wood, Markquese Bell, Caleb Downs, and Alijah Clark, as well as showing plenty of pass rush juice off the edge against the Rams, this defense is out full force to confuse opposing offenses from the jump in 2026.
The next positive updates to look for in these terms would be splash plays from the likes of Shemar James and DeMarvion Overshown, with the latter being impressed by the progress the Cowboys made on Tuesday against the Rams compared to last training camp’s scrimmage against them, which happened in Oxnard.
The Rams’ own defensive line is going to be a handful for every team they play this season, one that will feature Myles Garrett, who the Cowboys did not have to deal with on Tuesday. This Rams front still gave the Cowboys offensive line enough trouble to make it – by all reports – a bit of a tough day for the offense. The interior run game did not gain the traction it had in team drills previously, and a result of this was the play-action game not looking quite sharp yet.
To go straight from competing against your own teammates and having to hold back a certain level of physicality to avoid injury to a scrimmage setting against a team as physical as the Rams is no easy feat. Come Saturday, the Cowboys offense likely won’t even be playing many of the starters that did get some work against the Rams. Offensive coordinator Klayton Adams called the plays in this scrimmage, and will likely be looking for the fundamental takeaways in technique and execution he can pass down to the depth players that will get the most run against the Seahawks.
When the Cowboys pass pro did hold up against the Rams though, there were some big plays in the pass game, including this acrobatic catch by rookie WR Anthony Smith.
We already highlighted Smith before this scrimmage as a player needing a strong start to the preseason, and how getting separation from defenders to show off his speed would go the longest way. Smith did just that against the Rams, and now will carry even more excitement into Saturday. UDFA TE Michael Trigg also caught another touchdown in Tuesday’s work, something that should make the Rams coaching staff smirk seeing how other teams are embracing their approach to throwing multiple athletic freaks at tight end on the field at the same time.
Slowly but steadily, Trigg is nearing the point where there is consistent enough buzz about him to put a big circle around his name ahead of Saturday’s exhibition, and see if he can take yet another step to make the TE depth competition super interesting. Who knows, by the time Week 15 rolls around and the Cowboys are visiting the Rams for real, they could be lining up similarly on offense with three capable tight ends – and Trigg being that third guy behind Jake Ferguson and Brevyn Spann-Ford. Spann-Ford also stood out in the scrimmage with a touchdown of his own.
The Cowboys did a whole lot to feel good about against the Rams, looking the part on defense, getting valuable mental reps at full speed for starters that won’t see a lot of preseason action on offense, avoiding any further injury issues, and helping Brian Schottenheimer and staff hone in on exactly how to prepare for Saturday in Seattle. Offseason football is getting fun in Cowboys land.
