Arguably the best linebacker on the Dallas Cowboys is Micah Parsons, and he’s mostly used as an edge rusher. Their second-best player at the position is out until late in the year.
While DeMarvion Overshown continues to work his way back from a second knee injury, his return isn’t expected until Thanksgiving Day at the earliest.
Which leaves eight linebackers on the roster to pick up the slack.
Which of them will step up and fill the void until Overshown returns? More importantly, how does this unit compare to the other three NFC East teams?
New Faces In The Room
To address the loss of Overshown to injury and the departure of Eric Kendricks, the Cowboys hit the trading block to land Kenneth Murray from the Titans. Then they hit free agency and got Chicago’s Jack Sanborn.
With Sanborn’s familiarity with new defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus, expect both Murray and Sanborn to have big roles early on.
Last year’s third-round draft pick, Marist Liufau, was solid in his rookie year. More so after Overshown went down in the Week 14 loss to the Bengals.
The Cowboys also drafted Shemar James in the fifth round of this year’s draft to help shore up the unit.
Dallas already had Damone Clark, a solid player who is likely to secure a back-up job at worst.
There are three linebackers who are likely fighting for at least a practice squad spot, especially after Overshown returns. Buddy Johnson, Justin Barron, and Darius Harris have a long road ahead to make the roster.
Second-Best In The Division
As will be the case in most of the unit-by-unit comparisons, the Cowboys and Eagles will take turns being 1-2 in the division at any position.
This is the case here with the linebackers as well. In this case, the slight edge goes to the Eagles, for now.
With the uncertainty of Murray and Sanborn on a new team, and with Overshown missing at least half, if not two-thirds, of the season, Philadelphia has a better unit.
The Eagles also have a little more depth to start the season. But that advantage will go away with Overshown’s return.
The Giants are a surprise third in the division.
That is thanks largely in part to the addition of Abdul Carter. New York hopes the rookie from Penn State is the second-coming of Micah Parsons.
If he is, yikes!
Washington has rebuilt its linebacker corps, bringing in veterans Bobby Wagner and Frankie Luvu.
But to be honest, this looks to be the weakest link on the Commanders’ roster right now. It definitely is the worst in the division no matter how you slice it.
a Dallas Cowboys fan, since the 70’s the Cowboys LB room is a mystery they have Micah Parsons until he gets his money and DeMarvion Overshown if he can stay healthy are their two best players for the last two season players was leaving threw free agency and it still will be a mystery in the Cowboys LB room
As usual, you have no idea what your talking about!!
To tell you the truth, I’m not concerned about the LB room. The combination of Marist, Murray and Sanborn is solid. Throw in a reset of scheme for Clark and ST contributions from James. Plus, at some point, Overshown comes back and it will go from Solid to Great on a heartbeat. I’d do the same analysis at CB to be honest (Bland, Elam, Cason with Diggs and Revel returning). The real issue is 1T | NT and stopping the run. It does matter how good your LBs or CBs are if its always 2nd and 4.
I’m not really sure how you get that the eagles have the best LB room in the division, but I have to disagree!! The only good LB they have is Zach Baun, and to be honest, he’s only had 1 good year!! So there’s no guarantee he’ll even be that good moving forward!! He couldn’t even make the saints team when he was with them!! He was cut by them cause he wasn’t good enough!! And the only other player the eagles have at LB that is even decent is Nakobe Dean and he’s been with the team for 3 or 4 years and hasn’t been able to be the starter until the start of this season!! And that’s pretty much all the eagles have!! They did draft Jihaad Campbell this year, but there’s no guarantee he’ll even be good in the NFL!! And they already have Nakobe Dean and Zach Baun penciled in as their starters, and that says something, cause Nakobe Dean hasn’t been good enough yet and he’s always getting injured when he does play, so the eagles picking him to start over Campbell says they don’t feel comfortable with Campbell yet!! And I think having Wagner and Luvu is a better team of LBs than the eagles have!! And you can’t put the giants ahead of Washington just because they have Abdul Carter…. Abdul Carter played edge rusher, and is still an edge rusher, he’s just put in as a LB because of the 3-4 scheme the giants defense runs!! But he’ll still be rushing the passer, so he’s really not a LB!! And another thing I wanna point out is that you put the eagles as the best in the division as far as LBs go, and like I said, Baun is the best they have, and you have the eagles as the best mostly because of Baun, but you wanna say that Payton Turner won’t even make our team because he didn’t do all that good for the saints, but the same thing can be said about Baun, and he came from the same team, the only difference is that Payton was drafted way higher than Baun was, so Payton was the better prospect coming out of college, so if Baun done that good for the eagles after leaving the saints, why can’t Payton do the same thing for us!? I personally think he can, I think he was drafted in the 1st round for a reason, I just think the saints defensive staff wasn’t using him the right way, just like they did with Baun!! So I think Payton will make our team and he’ll play better for us than he has since he’s been in the NFL!! But anyways, as far as the LB rooms in the NFC East go, I think we have the better group, and don’t forget, Eberflus is a LB genius, and he gets the most out of any LB he has coached!! So Kenneth Murray will more than likely have the best year he’s ever had since being in the NFL, Marist Liufau is already good, and will only get better, and Jack Sanborn is an Eberflus guy already, so we all know what Eberflus thinks of Sanborn!! And then we all know that Eberflus will use Parsons at LB at times, and Damone Clark is already being praised for the work he’s been doing since Eberflus came in, so I think he’ll be a lot better this year too!! And he’ll have even more motivation since this is his contract year!! So if I had to rank the LB rooms in the NFC East, I would have them ranked,
1. Dallas
2. Washington
3. Philly
4. New York
If Campbell comes in and balls out for the eagles this year, and Baun keeps playing like her did last year then I’ll switch Washington and Philly, but until then I think Washington has better LBs than Philly!!
a Dallas Cowboys fan, since the 70’s if I didn’t know what I was talking about why was the Cowboys defense was so terrible stopping the run last season