The Cowboys may have only gotten one preseason game out of Jaishawn Barham so far, but it was enough to make the early buzz feel real.
Barham, Dallas’ third-round pick and former Michigan Wolverines linebacker, had already been turning heads throughout training camp in Oxnard before a minor groin injury briefly slowed him down. Once he got back on the field this past week, he didn’t waste time reminding everyone why his name kept coming up.
On Saturday, Barham made his preseason debut against Arizona and looked every bit like a player who had been building toward this moment. Dallas even trusted him with the green dot, giving him the job of relaying plays on defense, and he handled it well.
His stat line jumped off the page: five tackles, three run stops, and one tackle for a loss. PFF graded him at 89.9 over 22 snaps, making him Dallas’ highest-graded defender in the game and the team’s top overall player.
The numbers behind Barham’s profile are just as eye-catching. As Adam Carter pointed out on X, Barham is one of only three FBS EDGE/Linebacker prospects in the past decade to post a pressure rate above 25 percent, a win rate in true pass sets above 27.5 percent, and a run stop rate above 10 percent. The only other names on that list are Micah Parsons and Abdul Carter.
It’s still only one game, and nobody should pretend otherwise. But for a Cowboys defense that hasn’t given fans much to latch onto in recent years, especially at linebacker, Barham’s debut offered a much-needed jolt.
If he keeps building on this start, Dallas may have found the kind of mid-round difference-maker it has been looking for.
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