FRISCO, Texas – As the Cowboys approach the 2025 season, Brian Schottenheimer and his new staff's tallest task will be finalizing the roster. With 22 players becoming unrestricted free agents, the Cowboys will have to look outside their own walls one way or another to build depth as they look to bounce back from a 7-10 finish in 2024.
Speaking at media row in New Orleans, former Cowboys fullback Daryl "Moose" Johnston had several thoughts on what direction the team needs to go in from a personnel perspective, starting with the trenches on the offensive side of the ball.
"They've got to get the offensive line more cohesive," Johnston said. "I don't know what really happened there, they've committed draft capital to it, there will be talent with people who are drafted in the first round, are we getting the right coaching there? Are we in the right type of system? Are we maximizing that skill set?"
The Cowboys trotted out two rookies to start the season in Tyler Guyton and Cooper Beebe, and both had very different seasons. Guyton struggled to stay on the field consistently battling injuries and had penalty issues when he was on the field. Beebe on the other hand was solid for the most part of the year as the Cowboys' center, a position he's never played before.
When you have good play on the offensive line, you can usually have a solid run game. Those two aspects didn't marry for a majority of the year in Dallas, as the Cowboys finished as the sixth worst rushing offense in the league. Rico Dowdle progressed well at the end of the year, but Johnston thinks the Cowboys need a home-run hitter too.
"I'm a big Rico Dowdle fan, I liked him when he was kind of the rotational guy, I think he runs hard," Johnston said. "You need that guy that can go 60 though. That's the biggest thing about Saquon [Barkley], he's good on a lot of the runs, but God, those big runs are back breakers, and he can change the game in a heartbeat."
On the defensive side of the ball, Johnston likes the potential of the linebacker room with younger guys like DeMarvion Overshown and Marist Lifuau showing flashes of greatness, but wants to see more depth in the wake of injuries plaguing that room all season.
"How do you make sure you've got some good backup there?" Johnston said. "You've got to commit something there, maybe you don't want those numbers with that amount of talent, but it just doesn't seem like anybody can finish the season healthy at the linebacker level."
Injuries across the board played a major role in the Cowboys' 2024 season, making it difficult for Johnson to assess Dallas' roster given their success in the last three seasons prior where they went 12-5 three years in a row.
"That's the thing, we're trying to look at a roster that's coming off several key positions and players with injuries," Johnston said. "This is a team that won a lot of football games the previous seasons prior to this, so are we overacting to what the roster could be and when the roster is healthy, how good is it?"
Sometimes injuries can be a result of straight bad luck. That said, there are things that teams can do to lessen the likelihood of injuries occurring, and Johnston believes that teams across the league aren't doing enough in the offseason to take care of their players.
"What are we doing in the offseason to make sure we're not having these injuries in season?" Johnston said. "Not just the Dallas Cowboys, I don't think the NFL does enough to help themselves there."
Johnston explained that he wasn't a fan of veteran days, in which players that have been in the league for a while take a day off of practice in the week leading up to a game, and thinks there needs to be a better balance between resting and being proactive about avoiding injury.
"If you want to be about player health and safety, these guys need to work a little bit more in my opinion," Johnston said. "In their own facilities, not with a private trainer, but getting together at their facilities, working with their strength coaches, and doing a lot of work that's injury preventative in the offseason before they get ready for an 18 week, 17 game schedule."
