With the loss of Randy Gregory to the Denver Broncos, Dallas brought in familiar face for Dan Quinn and his defense, signing veteran pass rusher Dante Fowler, Jr. to a one-year contract on March,18, 2022.
Fowler was recruited by Quinn when he was the defensive coordinator for the University of Florida where they spent his freshman season in 2012 together. Fowler then signed with Falcons in 2020 when Quinn was the head coach for five games before getting let go.
The Cowboys have agreed to a deal with Dante Fowler, per sources. Reunites with Dan Quinn, who signed him in Atlanta in 2020. Former No 3 overall pick in 2016 with Jacksonville, he has 35 sacks for his career.
— Todd Archer (@toddarcher) March 18, 2022
Fowler has spoken very highly of Quinn both on and off the field. When signing, Fowler said he would be content with playing for him for the rest of his life. “That’s the type of coach he is, he knows the ins and outs of me, on the field and off the field, he knows my family, he knows me personally,” he said.
Cowboys DE Dante Fowler said Dan Quinn a "real dude. …I'm fine with just playing for him for the rest of my life, to be honest with you. That's the type of coach he is. He knows the ins and outs of me, on the field and off the field. He knows my family. He knows me personally."
— Michael Gehlken (@GehlkenNFL) April 18, 2022
Since being the third overall pick in the 2015 NFL draft, Fowler has had a very up and down career, but did record an 11.5 sack season as a member of the Los Angeles Rams in 2019, but was only able to muster 7.5 combined the last two years in Atlanta.
The Cowboys will have plenty of options to explore when trying to replace the 6.5 sacks from Gregory last season.
Although DeMarcus Lawrence is no Aaron Donald, Fowler will again have the luxury of lining up along side another pro-bowl caliber pass rusher like he did in 2019.
To add, the versatility of NFL rookie of the year, Micah Parsons could allow Quinn to scheme together a solid way to create havoc on the opposing signal callers.
Only time will tell though, Fowler seems interested in only one goal and that is to do whatever the Cowboys need him to do to win football games, and if there is one coach that could bring the best out of him it would be Quinn.
Here’s hoping Quinn can get him back to form. For the price, I still like him a lot better than Gregory.
But, after two significant knee injuries (ACL in 2015 and IR in 2021), he may just be a declining player.
I’d rather have him over Gregory…. Gregory wasn’t all that good anyways!! So it shouldn’t be too hard to replace the production that we got from Gregory!! Micah Parsons got about as many sacks in his rookie year as Gregory did in his whole 7 year career!! So I think Fowler can come in here and get at least 6 sacks for us this year….I think Dan Quinn can get that out of him!! The only mistake I think we made is that we only signed him for 1 year!! I think we should’ve signed him for at least 2 or 3 years with that cheap of a contract, cause if he does have another year like he did in 2019 then there’s no way we’ll be able to get him back on our team…. But if we signed him for 2 or 3 years and he has another big year, we’ll already have him signed for the next couple of years on a really cheap deal!! And if he don’t have a big year, then no problem, we’ll just have a really cheap depth player at edge rusher, or we can cut him…. Either way, with contracts that cheap on players that have a good chance at having a big year, need to be for more than one year, just in case they do have that big year, we won’t have to lose them right after that year is up!!