Players who are being overshadowed by a great Cowboys offseason
· Yahoo Sports
Before we know it, the Dallas Cowboys will touch down in Oxnard, CA. Every summer, storylines will rule the news cycle with several questions to be answered. Who are the players that are fighting for roster spots? Who will win their position battle? Who is the player that no one saw coming?
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The Cowboys aren’t ever short of conversation when it comes to dissecting the team, especially not this season when it comes to topics like George Pickens. Yet, the other question one must ask: Who is getting lost in the shuffle? What players are being forgotten? Here are four players that aren’t being talked about enough ahead of training camp.
Jalen Thompson
While the Dallas Cowboys and their fans are rightfully thrilled to have Caleb Downs, it somehow almost makes you forget that the Cowboys picked up a pretty good safety in Jalen Thompson. Thompson, along with Downs and Malik Hooker, gives Dallas a deep safety room that affords them the luxury of playing a different array of coverages.
While some may attribute that to Downs, Thompson also plays a big part. He can play two deep coverage, he can play down in the box and play some slot in a pinch. He has averaged 100 tackles per season over the last five years. With all the news and storylines surrounding the team, you don’t hear much about Thompson. Expect Thompson to have a terrific season and be a very dependable player despite the lack of fanfare.
Marquez Valdes-Scantling
Dallas has a top-heavy wide receiver room that boasts CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens as the “Star” attractions. Furthermore, Pickens’ contract status occupies a lot of the conversation when it comes to Dallas’ receivers. Plus, behind Lamb and Pickens is Ryan Flournoy, who showed flashes last season with multiple 100-yard games. A breakout for Ryan Flournoy feels almost imminent given the Cowboys’ offense with Dak Prescott at the controls.
Meanwhile, the excitement around newcomers Anthony Smith and Denzel Mims has fans thinking Smith may pay immediate dividends as a speedy big target with enticing upside, and a potential career-resurgence story for Mims.
This allows Marquez Valdes-Scantling to quietly fly under the radar. Valdes-Scantling has had a pretty respectable career as a complementary receiver. He has won two championships with the Kansas City Chiefs and is a certified deep threat. He has averaged 16.8 yards per reception for his career and has an average depth of target of 15.7 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. He has to make the roster first, but there just may be a surprise player there that many people have already dismissed.
Nick Leverett
Backup center is now one of the positions to keep an eye on moving forward this season. At first, the Cowboys secured a very good backup behind Cooper Beebe with the signing of Matt Hennessy. Unfortunately, Hennessy was placed on season-ending injured reserve with a neck injury, elevating the need for a reliable option.
T.J. Bass is expected to work into the mix, but well-traveled veteran Nick Leverett is penciled in as Beebe’s backup. As the summer picks up, it’ll be interesting to see how Leverett fares. You can already expect that he will get a large workload in the preseason matchups. If Leverett can hold his own, he could, at worst, secure a safe place on the roster and, at best, the number two job behind Beebe.
Leverett has largely gone unnoticed because, let’s face it, we wouldn’t need to familiarize ourselves with him unless something went wrong. As for the team, Dallas likely would prefer that Leverett would be able to hold down the fort in Beebe’s absence so Bass is available to fill in at either guard spot if needed.
Shemar James
With the complete makeover that the Cowboys defense has undergone, it caused many to completely move past an abysmal 2025 defense, and the anticipation of a better unit has caused some players that were on last year’s defense to recede into the background. One person in particular is Shemar James.
James had a lot of time on the field as a rookie and, by the bare numbers, put up some good stats. However, what that also showed was a player that was being heavily counted on and appeared to be overwhelmed at times. James was one of the youngest players in the draft as he was only 20 years old when he was selected by the Cowboys, and it showed as he had his challenges with adjusting to a full workload in the NFL.
The hope is the will improve exponentially under a technician such as Christian Parker. Why he has faded into the crowd somewhat is because of the expectations on DeMarvion Overshown, and Dallas acquiring Dee Winters by trade during the draft.
Still, there’s a lot to like about James’ game. He has terrific speed to play laterally and has great closing speed coming downhill. Also, James has already seen some time with the first-team unit this offseason, so he isn’t far behind from making a relatively significant impact even if he is being talked about much.