Offense always grabs the headlines during NFL preseason hype, and that holds true in Dallas. However, year after year, it’s the other side of the ball that often determines a team’s fate, and the 2025 Cowboys defense is no exception.
Despite all the quarterback trouble and overall offensive struggles, Dallas’s D gave up the fifth-most yards in the entire league, and no team allowed more rushing touchdowns.
Defensive struggles, especially in the running game, feel like a yearly occurrence for the Cowboys; no matter how big the names are on that side of the ball, they always fall short of creating an elite unit.
Incoming defensive coordinator and former Bears head coach, Matt Eberflus, is trying to change that narrative.
https://twitter.com/NFLonCBS/status/1930354534397976812
The only problem with that is the depth chart. Despite all the changes, signings, departures, and draft selections, the Cowboys’ defense as a whole is unbalanced and flat-out weak in certain areas.
Here, we’ll talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of this unit and what their outlook is for the 2025 season.
The Good: Top-Notch Front Seven
Many fans worried about what the defensive front would look like after long-time veteran DeMarcus Lawrence left in free agency. Fortunately, it seems like the front office created a pretty good group to supplement that.
With Micah Parsons headlining the front seven, Dallas has been able to surround him with veteran talent and high-potential young guys who can get to the quarterback.
Whether it be Dante Fowler Jr or Donovan Ezeiruaku off the edge, or Jack Sanborn, Marist Liufau, and the recovering DeMarvion Overshown in the linebacker room, there is a lot of production and potential that could combine for an explosion in 2025.
DeMarvion Overshown pic.twitter.com/Dwt9K8R7Of
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) June 3, 2025
On the interior, guys like Osa Odighizuwa, Mazi Smith, Soloman Thomas, and rookie Jay Toia carry a good mixture of talents that should blend well enough at defensive tackle.
Overall, it’s hard to look at the starters in the front seven and complain, especially if they end up healthy at the same time this season. This is clearly the best group on the 2025 Cowboys defense.
The Bad: Overall Lack Of Quality Depth
Like I said, the starters across the defense, but especially in the front seven, don’t make you worry much. What could, however, is the depth behind those guys.
If you look around the depth chart, you’ll find a lot of unproven or underperforming names that will be asked to fill huge shoes if the injury bug bites. Guys like Sam Williams, Payton Turner, Damone Clark, and Kaiir Elam are not starters on a playoff team.
If one or two guys go down, though, they will be out there with the first-team for the Cowboys defense.
This is where Dallas could run into major trouble. It is impossible to remain healthy for an entire season, and in 2024, we saw how severe that can be with some bad luck. If they have a similar year to last, we’d be looking at a pretty rough defensive unit.
There are guys in this group that could prove us wrong and burst onto the scene, but on paper, the depth on defense does not give you a calming feeling right now.
The Ugly: Secondary Is Living Risky
If there is one aspect of the 2025 Cowboys defense that should keep the organization up at night, it is, by far, the secondary.
Considering names alone, it doesn’t look that bad: Trevon Diggs and DaRon Bland are All-Pros, Malik Hooker and Donovan Wilson have carried the load at safety for years, and there are promising young guys that back them all up.
When you dig a little deeper, however, you start to see where this thing could really fall apart.
Cowboys CB Trevon Diggs to undergo surgery (knee), could be out up to eight months. (via @RapSheet) pic.twitter.com/HLZ2SigYtg
— NFL (@NFL) December 16, 2024
Diggs is coming off major knee surgery, his second in a few years; Bland had an injury-riddled 2024; the safeties are not getting any younger.
Even the younger talents in Shavon Revel and Caelen Carson carry their injury concerns, as the rookie from East Carolina recovers from a torn ACL and the second-year man from Wake Forest tries to bounce back from a banged-up first season.
Simply put, it wouldn’t take much for this unit to get ugly. Even if they don’t, it’s hard to argue that they aren’t the weakest link on the Dallas defense this year.
…as I said the secondary will not hold up it’s end. They will be riddled with good opponents exploiting their inexperience and lack of depth. Cowboys should finish with a 7 and 9 record.
They’ll win more than 7 games!! And the secondary is gonna be a lot better than you think!! There’s plenty of talent in the secondary and there’s good depth too!! And the coaching staff is good at getting the best out of the defensive players!! So we’ll be fine!! We shouldn’t have any problems getting 10 wins this season, as long as we stay healthy!!
My brother in Christ, have you looked at the schedule? 10 wins would be a miracle…
The secondary is not that bad!! DaRon Bland didn’t have a injury riddled season, he had one injury!! It was a bad one, but still, just one injury!! I’m sure he’ll be back to normal this season!! Kaiir Elam is a player worth starting!! He was picked in the 1st round for a reason!! Just because he wasn’t the starter in Buffalo, it don’t mean he’s not good enough to be a starter!! And Carson is the same as Bland, he only had one injury, he just wasn’t too good when he came back from that injury, plus the coaches found a better option by the time he got back!! And Shavon Revel was a 1st round pick talent until he got injured, and he got injured early in the season, so he shouldn’t have any problems being ready by the start of the season, if he’s not ready by training camp!! And then we have Israel Mukuamu…. He don’t get enough credit!! He shut down Chris Godwin in the playoffs, which is obviously a big reason for us winning that game!! He should’ve been playing a lot more than he has been!! And as far as the safeties go, yeah, our starters aren’t getting any younger, but they have backups that are really good too!! Bell is so good that Dan Quinn had to play him at LB just so he could get on the field, so if Donovan Wilson leaves or gets injured, Bell can take his place and we’ll be just as good there, if not better!! And we can put Thomas in for Hooker if we need to!! Thomas ain’t as good as Hooker is, but he’s good enough to hold the position down until Hooker comes back, or we find a better replacement!! So with all that said, we have plenty of help in the secondary, and there are plenty of good talent back there with starters and backups!! So I think we’ll be fine!! And you say guys like Sam Williams, Payton Turner and Damone Clark can’t start in playoff games…. Well they’re better players than you think apparently!! Coaches are raving about Clark right now!! They say he’s doing better than he has been since he’s been in the NFL!! And Sam William has always been a good pass rusher, he was just stuck behind a lot of other players, and then he got injured last season when he was gonna get his shot!! I wouldn’t have any problems with him starting games if Micah or Dante Fowler got hurt!! And it’s the same with Payton Turner!! He was a 1st round pick for a reason too!! He just had to deal with bad coaching!! And even then, at the end of his last season with the Saints, he started showing why he was a 1st round pick, but the stupid coaches wouldn’t keep him on the field!! He showed he can be a really good player, but the coaches wasn’t smart enough to keep him on the field!! And I’m actually glad that’s how it worked out, cause we got to get him for cheap!! We just messed up by not signing him to a longer deal!! And as far as our DTs go, I think we’ll be fine there too!! Mazi Smith is gonna finally get to play his 2nd year in a row at the same weight he played in college and don’t have to deal with stupid coaches making him lose weight and then gain it back, he just gets to go into this season at the same weight he was at last season, so I think he’ll have his breakout year this season!! And then we have Jay Toia, he is a run stopper and that’s it!! If he was a better pass rusher, he would have been drafted way sooner than he was!! He should’ve been drafted way sooner anyways, just because of how good he is at stopping the run!! But we were lucky enough to get him in the 7th round!! I think he’s gonna surprise a lot of people!! And to end this, I think our defense is gonna be a lot better than most of you people think!! And we have the defensive staff to make it happen!!