The California portion of Dallas Cowboys training camp has come to an end. After playing their second preseason game Saturday night in Seattle, the Cowboys will return to Dallas for a week of camp practices at The Star in Frisco, Texas.
To wrap up what was on display over four weeks in Oxnard, Cowboys reporters Jon Machota and Saad Yousuf broke things down into three parts. Machota provides the seven players who stood out most and the seven who didn’t stand out as much as expected. Yousuf provides his five biggest takeaways.
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Who stood out most?
Micah Parsons. It’s not even close. Parsons was the best player in Oxnard and probably on any training camp field across the NFL this year. He seems poised to have an NFL Defensive Player of the Year season.
CeeDee Lamb. He has made two Pro Bowls during his first three years in the league. He had 1,359 receiving yards and nine touchdowns last season. From what he has shown in camp, this has the making to be his best season yet. He looks comfortable in the offense and has been making the tough catches look routine.
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Brandin Cooks. There has been no acclimation period for the offense’s biggest offseason acquisition. Cooks hit the ground running from Day 1. He should be the favorite to be No. 2 behind Lamb on the team in targets, receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns.
DeMarcus Lawrence. Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said this week that this is the most productive training camp that Lawrence has had since McCarthy became Dallas’ head coach in 2020. Lawrence hasn’t gotten to the QB as much as Parsons, but he’s clearly No. 2 on that list.
Stephon Gilmore. Like Cooks, Gilmore has fit in immediately. He doesn’t take the ball away as much as Trevon Diggs, but Gilmore is almost always in the right spot. Gilmore, who turns 33 next month, looks like he still has plenty of gas left in the tank.
Jalen Tolbert. There was no clear No. 4 wide receiver when the Cowboys arrived in Oxnard. Tolbert has run away with that spot over the last month. He has looked confident and made impressive grabs regardless of who has been throwing him the ball.
Deuce Vaughn. The rookie has shown he’s ready to contribute in Year 1. It remains to be seen how much he’ll be used right away, but NFL competition doesn’t look like it will be too much for the 5-5, 180-pound running back.
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Was hoping to see a little more
Malik Davis. There certainly have been opportunities for him to grab the No. 2 job. Right now, he’d probably be fourth on the depth chart behind Tony Pollard, Vaughn and Rico Dowdle.
Luke Schoonmaker. The plantar fasciitis limited his start to camp, something you never want to see with a rookie. He’ll be in the tight end rotation as long as he’s healthy, but he has some catching up to do.
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Kelvin Joseph. There have been opportunities for him to have a bigger role defensively this season, but he hasn’t done enough to move past others on the depth chart, where he’s probably seventh right now behind Diggs, Gilmore, DaRon Bland, Jourdan Lewis, Nahshon Wright and Eric Scott.
Simi Fehoko. He’s had an up-and-down camp. Arriving in Oxnard, Fehoko was competing for the No. 4 or No. 5 job, possibly filling Noah Brown’s old role. As of right now, the top six on the wide receiver depth chart are probably Lamb, Cooks, Michael Gallup, Tolbert, KaVontae Turpin and Jalen Brooks.
Offensive line depth. There’s a significant drop-off after the Cowboys’ starting five. That was on display in their preseason opener. It would be somewhat concerning right now if an injury occurred and Dallas had to start Matt Waletzko, Josh Ball, Matt Farniok or Brock Hoffman.
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Ronald Jones. Injuries and a suspension to start the season have made this a tough camp for Jones, who came to California hoping to compete for the No. 2 running back job.
Mazi Smith. It’s not that Smith has performed poorly, there just haven’t been a lot of flash plays from the first-round pick. And the expectations are very high. He’ll be in the defensive tackle rotation immediately, but the starters are likely Osa Odighizuwa and Johnathan Hankins.
Biggest takeaways
Balanced competition: McCarthy said one reason why the Cowboys opted to not have joint practices with another team, as they have in the past, was because he had confidence in the two units he had in house. Throughout camp, it was easy to see his point in how competitive the offense and defense were with each other.
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Two examples, in particular, come to mind. In one practice, Prescott completed a quick slant to Tolbert. It was a great pass by Prescott and a good job by Tolbert to secure the catch. On that play, though, Gilmore was glued to Tolbert and had great coverage. That’s the kind of play that leaves the viewer encouraged with Prescott’s accuracy, Tolbert’s route running and catching and Gilmore’s coverage all in one play. Parsons’ dominance of the offensive line aside, this sort of thing was present consistently in practice. In another practice session, Diggs had multiple interceptions of Prescott and nearly grabbed a third in the back of the end zone, if he would have been able to keep his feet in with possession of the ball. In that same practice, though, Prescott and Gallup shook out of Diggs’ coverage for a deep touchdown that looked like blown coverage. The stars on offense and defense were regularly exchanging blows.
Jalen Tolbert, great catch with Stephon Gilmore draped all over him pic.twitter.com/MHuMmkPIpd
— Saad Yousuf (@SaadYousuf126) August 7, 2023
Prescott’s demeanor: There was already a lot of noise entering camp about Prescott coming off of a career-high 15 interceptions. The eighth-year quarterback didn’t shy away from testing one of the top cornerback tandems in the league. There’s obviously an element of wanting to be responsible but you don’t want it to swing so far the other way that the quarterback is just always checking down and never pushing the ball down the field. Training camp practices are the time to take those chances and test those waters so there’s a better idea of what can and can’t be done come regular season.
During camp, national talking heads and pundits latched on to a trash-talking story that centered around Prescott and Diggs. Even after the specific interaction that went viral, Prescott continued his regularly scheduled trash talk in practices, ranging from the defense to his own fellow quarterbacks. Players often say that they tune out the noise but it can sometimes be difficult to do, especially if you’re the starting quarterback of America’s Team and you’re not just hearing about it in cyber space but also being asked about these things. Prescott’s demeanor was encouraging to watch.
Leadership on display: The degree of mentorship was another thing that was pretty evident in camp across the board. Professional sports are competitive and that’s not just in regards to the other team. That can often be in-house as well amongst teammates, especially in the position rooms. In Oxnard, there was a lot of tangible evidence of players not taking the insecure approach and instead helping out their peers. Gilmore was regularly seen on the sidelines during team drills when the top unit was out, coaching up Diggs. Parsons was doing his part to make sure rookie LB DeMarvion Overshown knew where to be on certain plays and advising him on how he can stand out to the coaching staff. Davis and Dowdle were imparting their wisdom on Vaughn in the running game, and Turpin took a similar approach with Vaughn in the return game. Some of these position battles are going to be resolved in less than two weeks. Ultimately, it will lead to some players being out of jobs. During training camp though, there seemed to be a genuine effort to get everybody’s best on tape.
Diggs and Gilmore pic.twitter.com/UoEEFpEDOW
— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) August 5, 2023
Lack of fights: For how competitive and verbally feisty some sessions were, it was mildly surprising that there weren’t more fights that broke out. There were certainly some that happened this week at the tail end, with center Tyler Biadasz serving as a central figure and Parsons’ haymakers raising some eyebrows, but it was mostly cordial for the four weeks the teams were in California. Some of that may be a result of less time for that with McCarthy using more than two weeks for installations. It could also be that there was a pretty good mix of newcomers and incumbent players to where there was enough familiarity but also a feeling to develop a relationship before you start swinging at somebody who, ultimately, is your teammate.
Must be the last the padded practice, because you could see this coming!! @DegarrickSamuel pic.twitter.com/AvMmmp0lEV
— William A. Boykins (@WilliamBoykins) August 16, 2023
Escaping injuries: The Cowboys did have their share of bumps and bruises, with safety Donovan Wilson getting hurt early on and offensive lineman Chuma Edoga being carted off last week. But overall, the team managed to avoid any sort of devastating injury. One look around the NFL will show how rare that can be. On paper, the Cowboys have a talented roster but need those players to be on the field. The four weeks in Oxnard were a good start to that.
(Photo of Deuce Vaughn: Kevin Jairaj / USA Today)
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