The Cowboys left Sunday with a win, but they also got another hard reminder of what their defense still lacks off the edge.
Dallas beat the Houston Texans 34-30 after Dak Prescott led a game-winning drive in the closing minutes, erasing a 10-point halftime deficit and pushing the Cowboys to 2-2. The comeback mattered.
The defensive issues did, too. Houston still put up 30 points, and the pressure problem that has lingered around this team showed up again.
Jadeveon Clowney was right in the middle of it.
Back from a knee injury, Clowney was on the field for only half of Houston’s defensive snaps, yet he still finished third on the team with four pressures and tied for third with three defensive stops. Those plays came at key moments, and Dallas felt them all afternoon.
Early on, Clowney helped wreck the Cowboys’ rhythm. In the first quarter, on second-and-5 from the Houston 21, he collapsed the pocket and split a sack with defensive tackle Jaden Crumedy. Dak Prescott couldn’t find Pickens on third down, and Dallas settled for a Brandon Aubrey field goal.
Clowney showed up again early in the second quarter. On second-and-8, he got into the backfield and forced Prescott into a throwaway.
Prescott avoided the sack, but only barely, and he was flagged for intentional grounding because the pass never got back to the line of scrimmage. A few plays later, the Cowboys were punting.
His biggest swing came in the third quarter.
With Dallas at the Texans’ one-yard line, Clowney stuffed a first-and-goal handoff to Javonte Williams. If Kamari Lassiter hadn’t drawn his second pass interference penalty on George Pickens, the Cowboys would have walked away empty on that series in a 23-20 game, with Clowney’s stop looming as the defining snap.
The play itself was brutal for Dallas. John Owning clipped it, and it showed Clowney winning against Jake Ferguson and Brevyn Spann-Ford before swallowing up Williams at the line. Ferguson was sent flying by a subtle stutter, Spann-Ford was displaced with ease, and Clowney finished the job at the point of attack.
That kind of snap is exactly why the Cowboys’ decision to let him go looks worse now.
Stephen Jones had repeatedly framed Clowney as a fit issue in Christian Parker’s defense. At the owners meetings in February, he said:
“We’re gonna work through with (new DC Christian Parker). A lot of it will happen this coming week, in terms of the type of player (we’re looking for). We’re gonna continue to have those talks, and then we’ll make final decisions on who we think will be productive in this particular system.”
There may be some truth to the idea that Clowney wasn’t a perfect schematic match. But Dallas was never in a position to be choosy. Across the season, he had already been Dallas’ best defensive player in 2025, and he looked like their best edge defender right now, too.
Rashan Gary had his best game as a Cowboy on Sunday, but he had been underwhelming before that. Donovan Ezeiruaku didn’t show up.
Von Miller might as well have been inactive. Malachi Lawrence has flashed as a pass rusher, but not often enough to change much.
Jerry Jones, Stephen Jones, Parker and Brian Schottenheimer overthought the whole thing.
Clowney wanted to come back. He filled an obvious need.
He was coming off a productive season. Nobody was asking him to turn the pass rush into something it isn’t.
Dallas just needed proven edge depth, and he was sitting there.
The Cowboys got the win. They also got a reminder that Jadeveon Clowney should have been one of the first players brought back in the offseason.
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