News: How good can the Cowboys defense be in 2017?

[Floatyworm]

I will say the hype train is at full throttle

Boy your not kidding... I see gaping holes @ strong safety...and NT. If people think Jeff Heath playing down in the box and Stephen Paea is gonna hold up in the run game...are they mistaken.

Still not convinced 2 rookie CBs can come in and have a huge impact either.

 

[Sarge]

One word: development.......

Another word.......... Potential.

 

[CCBoy]

Boy your not kidding... I see gaping holes @ strong safety...and NT. If people think Jeff Heath playing down in the box and Stephen Paea is gonna hold up in the run game...are they mistaken.

Still not convinced 2 rookie CBs can come in and have a huge impact either.

Just for the record...how many pink rabbits do you see here?

How about now?

 

[JoeKing]

At this point it's anyone's guess how good the defense can be. Coached up and motivated this young crew could be pretty good but then again lack of experience can be exploited, so we'll have to wait and see. I love the game of football and seeing how 11 guys work together to achieve a goal. We know our offence is/will be good... it is what it is. At the end of the day, the most important stat is outscoring the opponent and so the defense is critical in that equation.

 

[jaybird]

How good can the Cowboys defense be in 2017?
https://www.fanragsports.com/nfl/cowboys/good-can-cowboys-defense-2017/



The Cowboys need the likes of Tyrone Crawford and DeMarcus Lawrence to stay healthy and play up to the level they’ve each shown at various points. Young players Taco Charlton and Charles Tapper have to meet the potential the team believes they have, and David Irving and Maliek Collins need to live up to the flashes they showed last season. If all that happens, the Cowboys will have a defensive front that can put the heat on quarterbacks.

On the back end, only two of the top six defensive backs from the 2016 team will return in 2017. The remaining positions, two of the top three corners and two of the top three safeties, will be filled by players with a greater penchant than their predecessors for making plays on the ball. Three rookies, Chidobe Awuzie, Jourdan Lewis and Xavier Woods, free agent acquisition Nolan Carroll and former reserves Jeff Heath and Anthony Brown will compete for those roles.

These changes, along with the infusion of a potentially healthy Jaylon Smith at linebacker, set the ceiling for the Cowboys defense extremely high. If the players on the defensive line play to their potential, there’s no reason why this Cowboys defense can’t be one of the top-10 units in the league, making the Cowboys one of the most complete teams in the NFL...

Average at best

 

[CCBoy]

Average at best

Want to go signature bet on the overall ranking of the Dallas defense being higher than your projected 16th?

 

[ShiningStar]

lets just say i agree with both development and potential. I for one am on record, regardless of the record, doesnt matter as long as our young guys get some time and experience. I am glad Dallas has a plan, stuck by it, now implement it. If we win and do good, great, but the scope of the season has got to circle around the young defense. Like last year did with Dak and Zeke. For me, i would already expect this team to be a playoff powerhouse. That hasnt happened, but this is the next best thing, or something that should have been done years ago, it didnt but its here now. Im willing to ride with Garrett on this as long as those rookies are not ignored or receiving less time just for an extra win or two that wont help much. Going 8-8 and ignoring the players would irk me off. going 8-8 but those rookies played, worth it.

 

[DFWJC]

Looking forward to finding out.

 

[Idgit]

We finally took some steps towards improvement this offseason. And we had a couple bets from last year that might pay off. It's all going to depend how much of an improvement Taco + Tapper + Jaylon can make in the front 7. If they're a substantial upgrade, we've got a chance to take a nice step forward. I believe Collins and Damien Wilson both have a chance to make forward strides this year. If Irving and Lawrence basically give us what they gave us last year, and Thornton/Paea/Collins/Crawford don't represent a downgrade to McClain/Collins at DT we could be ok.

The secondary, I expect to play at about the level we played at last season early on, because Heath will give us basically what Church/Wilcox gave us. Frazier/Blanton/Woods might have a bit of a learning curve. Same with Lewis/Awuzie. So maybe we give up more big plays early on (which would be really unfortunate since we did a good job with not doing that last year). But later in the season hopefully these 'smart CBs' wills start getting the hang of things and we see some tighter coverages and even some takeaways.

It'd take Jaylon Smith representing a huge upgrade at MLB to really take a big step forward this year, I think. I'm not expecting that. I think we see some chippy young players playing well and with attitude, and basically a scrappy defense that outplays its talent level against mediocre and bad QBs and who gets challenged again by the great ones. It'll be up to Dak and Company to out perform those really good offenses if we're going to progress in the postseason.

 

[dallasdave]

I hope for the best! They gotta prove themselves. On a side note, Jaylon is making some side cash in Wylie

Championship Level