Sunday’s matchup with the Baltimore Ravens will say plenty about where the Dallas Cowboys really stand, and Lamar Jackson already sounds like he expects a fight up front.
Both teams come in at 1-1, but Baltimore is usually at its best when Jackson is healthy. For Dallas, the assignment is the same one every defense gets against him: make the pocket messy, stay disciplined when he breaks free, and try to survive the chaos long enough to win.
Jackson gave the Cowboys’ front a strong endorsement when he was asked about Christian Parker’s defense and Dallas being known as America’s Team.
“Yes, but this is America. That is Brazil.
So we will see, we will see. But I have seen (the Cowboys) pass rushers - they are unbelievable.
They get after the quarterback a lot and disrupt the pass game a lot. But it is football at the end of the day, you know?
We are just going to have to go out there and do what we (are) supposed to do.”
That kind of praise sounds generous coming from a two-time MVP, especially when Dallas is still searching for a pass rush that looks anything like the one Micah Parsons used to lead.
There are really only two ways to read Jackson’s comments. He either genuinely likes what he sees from a Cowboys rush that has been active but not especially productive, or he’s playing the usual quarterback game and handing out compliments while keeping the other sideline motivated. Either way, the numbers don’t exactly scream dominance.
Dallas has just one sack through two games, and that lone sack came from rookie defensive back Caleb Downs. Donovan Ezeiruaku is tied with Quinnen Williams and Rashan Gary for the team lead with five pressures. Rookie first-round pick Malachi Lawrence has four pressures and owns the best pass-rush win rate among Cowboys defenders at 26.9 percent, though that comes with a major caveat: he’s only played 27 pass-rush snaps.
The broader picture is even less flattering. Per PFF, 17 teams already have a player with at least eight pressures, and six teams have a player with at least 10.
Across the league, 28 players have multiple sacks already. Dallas has one sack as a defense, and it didn’t come from a defensive lineman.
That’s where the frustration starts. Pressures matter, and pass-rush win rate is a strong way to measure how often a defender is actually winning his matchup.
Sacks aren’t the only thing that counts, but eventually disruption has to turn into something that changes a drive. On that front, Dallas has been too inconsistent.
Ezeiruaku, for instance, had chances in Week 2 to cash in. He could have finished with three sacks against Jayden Daniels and Marcus Mariota, but couldn’t get them down.
That’s the difference between a defense that flashes and one that closes. A hurry can force a bad throw.
A sack can wreck a series.
So if Jackson truly sees something dangerous in this Cowboys front, he’s seeing more than the production shows right now. For all the activity from Donovan Ezeiruaku, Quinnen Williams, Kenny Clark, Rashan Gary, and Malachi Lawrence, the group has not looked like a finished product. At this point, calling the rush disruptive feels a little too kind.
Maybe Jackson knows something the rest of us don’t. But right now, the Cowboys still have to prove it.
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The bigger concern may still be in the trenches, where both the offensive and defensive lines have continued to struggle. For a team trying to build toward a more stable offseason picture, those issues matter just as much as the individual performances around them, because they shape how Dallas will judge its own depth and priorities. With 2027 looming on the horizon for this group, the Cowboys are already seeing which names are helping themselves and which ones still have work to do. [Read more 🡒]