The Cowboys opened the preseason the right way Saturday night, walking out of Lumen Field with a 17-7 win over the Seahawks and a long list of early clues about the roster.
With most of the starters held out, the night became a real evaluation exercise for the back end of the depth chart. Dallas got extended looks at backups and young players, and several battles came into sharper focus.
At tight end, the picture is starting to look clear. Jake Schoonmaker suited up, while Brevyn Spann-Ford did not, and that alone points to Schoonmaker being behind Spann-Ford in the pecking order.
Schoonmaker also didn’t help himself on the field. Rookie Michael Trigg, meanwhile, caught four passes for 30 yards and showed strong hands.
Schoonmaker has been viewed as a cut candidate for much of the offseason, and if he’s sitting no better than TE3 right now, there’s a real chance he doesn’t survive to the 53-man roster.
At receiver, the Cowboys probably want Jalen Mingo to win the WR5 job, given what they gave up to acquire him a few years ago. But Camden Brown is making that a tough call.
The undrafted rookie has been one of the standouts of camp, and he carried that momentum into the preseason opener with two touchdown catches. One came on a contested grab in the second quarter.
The other was a one-handed stunner in the third.
Meanwhile, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Traeshon Holden and seventh-round pick Anthony Smith were quiet through the first two quarters, and Holden and MVS finished with no catches at all. At the very least, Brown has given himself a real shot to beat out Mingo for the WR5 spot. After this debut, he may have moved into the lead.
The Cowboys’ top pick in the 2026 NFL Draft barely got on the field. He played about seven snaps before coming out, which meant no stat line to speak of. But that limited workload can also be read as a positive for Downs, since it suggests the coaching staff already trusts him enough not to need a long look.
Dallas also has some discipline issues to clean up. The Cowboys were flagged five times in the first quarter and six times by halftime, not exactly ideal for a team that led the NFL in penalties during the 2025 season.
Half of those early flags came from Carson, who opened the game by handing Seattle a touchdown drive with a pass interference and a facemask. He later added a defensive holding.
Carson did have a few tackles and a pass breakup, but the penalties overshadowed the rest of his night.
By the end, Dallas had piled up 13 penalties. That’s not a number the Cowboys want hanging around.
Up front, the line struggled. The Cowboys started Nate Thomas, Trevor Keegan, T.J.
Bass, Ajani Cornelius and Drew Shelton from left to right tackle, and the results weren’t pretty. The pass protection was shaky, and the run blocking was worse.
Outside of Bass, the depth on the offensive line looks like a major concern after what the Cowboys showed Saturday.
Jaydon Blue also appears to have moved ahead in the running back battle. He was the clear lead back while the twos were on the field in the first half, which suggests he’s in front of Mafah and Davis for the RB2 role.
Blue only managed 19 yards on eight carries because the line gave him little to work with, but he did show something as a receiver with a 13-yard screen catch, and he protected the football. Mafah had just four touches in that same stretch, and Davis didn’t get one.
Defensively, there was plenty to like, even with the starters out. It’s hard to draw a full conclusion from a preseason game like this, but the unit would have posted a shutout if not for the penalties on Seattle’s opening series. Dallas also came up with multiple stops near the goal line and avoided many of the mistakes that have hurt this defense in recent years.
For a first game in a new role, that’s exactly the kind of night Matt Parker could ask for.
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