FRISCO, TX – The Dallas Cowboys will head to training camp in Oxnard, California in a weeks to start the prep for the 2023 season. There have been a lot of moves in the off season and the Dallas Cowboys look very different than they did last season.
The off-season contained : Retaining Donovan Wilson. Adding more to our wide receiver room such as Brandin Cooks. Adding another tough defender on the opposite side of Trevon Diggs in the trade for CB Stephon Gilmore. Grabbing nose tackle Mazi Smith in the NFL Draft. And most importantly, all of our players that were under contract that returned are healthy and are a solid group for this upcoming season. The roster looks very strong for an NFC team, especially in a conference that is struggling.
Wide Receiver:
In recent years the Dallas Cowboys have struggled with giving Dak Prescott enough quality wide receivers in the backfield. Lately, it’s been CeeDee Lamb taking the majority of the reps and the reps seemed to double after WR Michael Gallup went down with a torn ACL. Gallup returned midway through last season and with the grab of Brandin Cooks in the off season they are more stacked than they have been in a while. Cooks is on the latter end of his career but is extremely fast and showed great speed during OTA workouts. Gallup had a slow season last year still coming back from that ACL injury but he’s 100 percent this season and ready to go. If all three receivers can show production that will take pressure off Lamb.
Tony Pollard now RB1:
Tony Pollard is the new RB1 in Dallas after the Cowboys parted ways with Ezekiel Elliott in the offseason. The ProBowler had a tremendous season last year proving to be one of the best backs in the league. He rushed for 1,007 yards on 193 carries and averaged 5.2 per carry. Unfortunately, he got injured in the playoff game against the 49’ers and broke his leg. Due to the injury he missed his first ProBowl game and some would say it’s the reason he got franchise tagged this upcoming year instead of getting that long-term deal. The front office wants to see how well he does coming off this injury before signing him for multiple years.
In one way, this is a cold but efficient use of him. He is playing on a tag, which inflated his cost, although he is certainly more cost effective than Elliott. But the team has the option of moving on from him next year, which may be the plan. Someone else will be the new RB2, and they will very much be auditioning to allow the Cowboys to move on and finally embrace the reality that running games don’t require special talent to be effective, as many teams have proven.
What will the first round pick do this season?
Everyone is super excited to see what the first round draft pick Mazi Smith does in his training camp debut. It will be exciting to see Smith get into some pads and get physical with his teammates. Smith can be a huge help to the Cowboys this year in regards to stopping the run game that Dallas really struggled with last season. The first round pick was definitely not a flashy one, and some fans might not like the pick because of that but he could be a real game changer coming up this season.
