Category: Playbook & Scheme

Cowboys’ number savant invited to NFL accelerator program for front offices

Cowboys Director of Analytics John Park to attend NFL’s accelerator program for diverse candidates. | From @ArmyChiefW3

The NFL is holding its annual front office accelerator program for diverse candidates and the Cowboys have no choice but to allow other clubs to mingle with their Director of Strategic Football Operations savant John Park.

The three-day meeting held in Irving, Texas allows the 34 candidates with the potential of becoming a general manager anytime within the next three years, to talk with former GMs about their experiences.

After a few years to adjust, the candidates will now be given 30 minutes in private rooms to speak with current front office members. Assistant GMs, scouts, plus two members of the league office will also be in attendance.

Dallas hired John Park as Director of Strategic Football Operations after holding the same position with Indianapolis since 2016.

Park holds a Master’s in Actuarial Science, which compiles and analyzes statistics to calculate insurance risks and premiums. After five years in that profession, he jumped to the NFL where he has fast-tracked his way through the football ranks.

Park was viewed as a big loss for Indianapolis and could be as equally damaging if he were to leave Dallas for the reigns of another NFL franchise.

Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy talked at length about analytics before he took the job in Dallas and Park’s hiring was a monumental shift in strategy.

Tom Robinson, the Cowboys former Director of Football Research, had been with the team since 2010 and took over the director’s role in 2014 before leaving to make room for Park.

After not making a move for almost a decade, Dallas could be searching for a new analytical mind if Park continues his rapid NFL ascension. With the spotlight now on him, chances are the Cowboys will be skimming the market soon.

This Cowboys UDFA rookie making case to be featured in long-term plans

Brevyn Spann-Ford is the Cowboys’ best blocking TE who has the potential to be elite in the future, finds @ReidDHanson.

The Dallas Cowboys are masters in finding steals through nontraditional avenues. From Brandin Aubrey and KaVontae Turpin who were found in other professional leagues, to Dak Prescott and DaRon Bland who were found in the latter portions of the draft, to Tony Romo and Miles Austin who were signed as undrafted free agents, the Cowboys have a knack for finding treasure in the rarest of places.

When Dallas signed undrafted tight end Brevyn Spann-Ford following the draft last spring, they were hoping they found their next big treasure. Standing almost 6-foot-7, 270-pounds, “big” might be an understatement.

The rookie from Minnesota was in demand following the draft. Players his size don’t come around very often and to many scouts, Spann-Ford had a draftable grade. What transpired was a bidding war, with team pit against team in an auction the Cowboys are all too familiar with. As fate would have it, Dallas won, outbidding the competition by guaranteeing $225,000 and throwing in a signing bonus of another $20,000 for good measure.

The sizable deal came with sizable expectations. In order to justify the costs, Spann-Ford would need to make the roster out of training camp, and he’d have to contribute in some way on game day. On a unit led by Pro Bowler Jake Ferguson and backed up former second rounder Luke Schoonmaker, getting snaps wasn’t going to be easy for the 24-year-old rookie.

12 games into his professional career Spann-Ford has found a way to be that contributor the Cowboys needed him to be. Not only has he logged 76 snaps on special teams, but he’s helped pick up the slack left by Ferguson’s injury absence on offense too. At 230 snaps and counting, Spann-Ford isn’t just craving out an offensive role in 2024 but he’s making the case for a bigger role in the future.

A blocking specialist by nature, Spann-Ford is already the Cowboys’ top-rated blocker at the TE position. Blessed with the size of a left tackle, Spann-Ford has the potential to develop into an elite blocker one day, possibly giving the Cowboys a mismatch player to design plays around.

Ferguson, reportedly close to coming back, will likely seize back his role as true TE1 the moment he’s cleared to play. And Schoonmaker, a player who has stepped up in Ferguson’s absence, will likely continue to be a player the Cowboys seek to develop. At face value this isn’t good news for Spann-Ford stockholders, but a deeper look shows Spann-Ford’s value and role remain intact.

As a blocker, Spann-Ford’s numbers and screen time are never going to jump out at people. But for the offensive line nuts who love nothing more than watching a well-executed run scheme play out, Spann-Ford is must-see-TV. Not perfect, but starting to flash dominant characteristics, the Cowboys newest UDFA is a player on the rise who still fits plenty of TE2 roles and responsibilities. There will likely be a rotation at the TE position the rest of the way this season and the two backups will both demand opportunities.

The Cowboys rarely use three TEs at the same time (1.3 percent) but that doesn’t mean three TEs won’t play each week. Spann-Ford is an exciting player who may be carving out a major role for the near future.

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Shifting the Overshown window: a major takeaway in Cowboys 27-20 win

DeMarvion Overshown has normalized the spectacular and that’s great for the Cowboys now and moving forward. | From @ReidDHanson

The Overton Window is known as the shifting spectrum of government policies that are deemed acceptable by the masses. What seemed crazy one year ago might now seem perfectly fine today. It’s achieved by changing circumstances and/or desensitization to the public.

DeMarvion Overshown has produced his own shifting window. When the Texas product was first drafted by the Cowboys in 2023, he was player without a clear and obvious position. At 6-foot-2, 220-pounds, he played a safety-linebacker hybrid role in college and projected to play something similar in the NFL.

After missing his rookie season to a season-ending injury, Overshown has been used largely as a linebacker in 2024. Yet day by day, he’s seen more and more opportunities to showcase the special talents other linebackers don’t possess. In the Cowboys’ 27-20 win over New York on Thanksgiving, Overshown has successfully normalized an abnormal role on the Dallas defense.

As the best weapon not named “Micah Parsons,” Overshown is an elite weapon blitzing up the middle, playing in the box, dropping into coverage, and playing off the edge. He’s become the player a defensive coordinator schemes for. He’s become a player offensive coordinators scheme against.

12 weeks ago, using Overshown as a regular pass rusher seemed like an absurd thought. A player built for the secondary didn’t have much business playing on the line of scrimmage. But Mike Zimmer’s infamous double A-gap blitz provided him a perfect opportunity to showcase his skills. He did that and more this season, logging 17 pressures and five sacks prior to Week 13. He trails only Parsons in the sack department this season and added another pressure, interception and touchdown to the ledger on Thursday.

It’s no longer a crazy proposition to use Overshown as a regular pass rusher, be it from the edge or up the middle. The Overshown window has shifted where the absurd have quietly become the expected.

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Mike McCarthy not using this elite weapon more is unjustifiable Cowboys crime

KaVontae Turpin has proven once again he needs a bigger role on the Cowboys offense. | From @ReidDHanson

For almost three years, return specialist KaVontae Turpin has made the Cowboys return game one of the most feared in the NFL. The former USFL MVP demanded respect from the start in Dallas, earning Pro Bowl honors as a rookie and seeing an ever-expanding role on offense along the way.

While Turpin’s workload on Mike McCarthy’s offense has seen year-to-year growth, it’s still a generally niche role. Through 11 weeks in 2024, Turpin has just five rushing attempts and 31 targets downfield. He’s on pace for a career season on offense but it’s considerably less than what many in the media and fan circles envisioned for the former TCU receiver.

Turpin has largely been stuck in a supportive and gadget role over the years. Despite the blatant need for speed and playmaking ability on offense, McCarthy has struggled to get Turpin involved. The 28-year-old hasn’t made things easy for his coach, dropping some key passes and running some undisciplined routes, but one can argue it’s not Turpin’s job to fit McCarthy’s roles but rather McCarthy’s job to find the right roles for Turpin.

Such a statement may sound like semantics or even blame shifting but the reality is Turpin is just 5-foot-9, 153-pounds soaking wet and stretched out. He’s not the plug-and-play WR McCarthy has been trying to make him be.

For the better part of the season Turpin’s results on the field have been fairly underwhelming. Until, of course, he was used in a way that leaned on his strengths over the past week. Turpin’s ability to be a gamebreaker was on full display against Houston when he took a routine slant route to the house for 64 yards. He showed off his ability to separate, create in space and take a short pass the distance in the blink of an eye.

According to Seth Walder at ESPN, Turpin’s slant route for six points was just the second slant Turpin has run all season. It’s an inexcusable situation from an offensive coach who naturally leans on slant routes to a near preposterous degree.

Rather than using Turpin on pick routes, screens and slants, the Cowboys have been running their diminutive dynamo downfield where his size and experience are understandably exposed. Over the past 2+ seasons in Dallas, Turpin has been misused and underutilized to an unforgivable degree.

An argument could be made his actual number of touches is near maxed out given his build and that McCarthy was simply preserving him as a return man. But with speed and game breaking ability such as Turpin’s, he doesn’t even need the ball in his hands to be impactful. Motioning him behind the line at the snap and dragging him shallow across the formation after the snap is a great way to spread defenses horizontally, opening space on passing routes and widening rushing lanes on runs.

It’s also worth pointing out no one has any idea where that usage rate maxes out at since it’s yet to be found. Turpin has played in 43 of a possible 44 regular season games since coming to Dallas. He’s been extremely durable even in the high impact life of a return man.

A restricted free agent in 2025, Turpin may be somewhere else in the near future. There stands a very real chance his best years as an offensive weapon are ahead of him if his next coach is more willing to feature him in ways that play to his strength.

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Cover 1, Cover 3, Cover your eyes: Cowboys defensive flip hasn’t worked

The Cowboys are doing something funny with their safeties and it isn’t working. | From @ReidDHanson

Most will agree, the Cowboys’ biggest shake up of the 2024 offseason was their change at defensive coordinator. Gone was Dan Quinn. After coaching the Dallas defense for three successful seasons, Quinn earned a head coaching job in our nation’s capital. Replacing him at the helm was long time coordinator Mike Zimmer. Zimmer brought with him his infamously demanding defensive scheme, a nonsense attitude and an acceptance for timely split safety looks.

While the Cowboys were still expected to lean on man coverage in 2024, they were also expected to show more two-high safety looks. Zimmer was known to disguise coverage frequently and split his safeties over the top from time to time. It was a departure from his predecessor who both preferred single high safety formations and didn’t put much value is disguises.

2024 has proven to be surprising but not quite in the way many imagined. Zimmer has indeed disguised coverages, rolling safeties and linebackers at the last second to catch passers off guard, but he hasn’t moved Dallas off the single-high safety reliance.

https://x.com/fball_insights/status/1848828006363529723

Between Cover 1 and Cover 3, the Cowboys play a combined 61% of their snaps in single high. While that may be down from the seasons prior, it still represents their two most popular coverages seven weeks into 2024.

It’s understandable since the Cowboys have two fairly different safeties starting on their defense. Malik Hooker, traditionally their free safety, has been one of the better centerfielders in the NFL. In his last two seasons under Quinn, he ranked inside the top 15 of the 88+ safeties Pro Football Focus graded. Donovan Wilson, their primary box safety, didn’t grade as well by PFF but since the majority of his splash plays come near the line of scrimmage with him running downfield, his positioning seemed appropriate as well.

Under Zimmer that has changed somewhat.

Hooker’s snap percentage at deep safety has dropped from 84 percent under Quinn to 66 percent under Zimmer. Wilson’s snap percentage at deep safety has jumped from 38 percent under Quinn to 57 percent under Zimmer. While the slight increase in split safety looks accounts for some of that, the two players can be seen routinely playing each other’s roles throughout a game.

Hooker can often be seen sneaking up into a box role while Wilson positions himself back as the single high. What would have been a unicorn moment in 2023 now looks commonplace on the Cowboys defense in 2024 and it’s hard to understand why.

Deception is one thing, but these are typically pre-snap alignments, so the intention is stated at the start. This is just a case of role swapping and based on early returns it isn’t working out great. Based on PFF grades Wilson is having the lowest graded season of his career in 2024. He’s flashed a nice play here and there, but most will agree it’s been a pretty poor season for the man who’s on the books for $7,370,575 this season.

Hooker is having a season to forget too. The former first-round pick is also having the lowest graded season of his career and is having a hard time justifying his more modest $3,985,296 cap hit as well.

It seems the two players were better when they were focused on their respective expertise. Maybe run fit discipline led to change or maybe it was matchups that has Zimmer playing mix and match with his two playmakers but whatever the reason, it doesn’t seem to be worth it.

The Cowboys are still leaning heavily on single high safety looks under Zimmer but where the new defensive coordinator differs from his predecessor is which safety he uses where. That may not be a good thing.

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Cowboys need to give these 2 backups more snaps or risk peril in secondary

It’s time the Cowboys give Donovan Wilson a rest and Juanyeh Thomas and Markquese Bell a chance. | From @ReidDHanson

The Cowboys have made it four games into their 2024 campaign and it is already clear certain adjustments are in order. The struggles of the defense combined with recent injuries to key personnel necessitate the urgency of change. Covering the injury losses of Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence are not easy changes with simple solutions. Altering roles and workloads in the secondary are a different story.

The Cowboys run defense rightfully garners most of the scrutiny in Dallas this season, but the secondary deserves its fair share of constructive criticism as well. Not only does the secondary play a key role in gap assignments in run support, but it’s also responsible for coverage downfield and open field playmaking. Injuries have spread the cornerback room thin, but the Cowboys safety corps remains intact and as deep as any position on the roster.

When reviewing the Cowboys struggles through the first portion of the season it’s almost impossible not to notice Donovan Wilson. Wilson, Dallas’ primary in-the-box safety has struggled immensely in 2024. His gap discipline has been lacking and instincts haven’t been doing his propensity to freelance any favors.

Wilson has always been a feast or famine player. He’s been known to disappear for extended periods of time only to explode on the scene for a monumental play out of the blue. Unfortunately, in 2024 it’s been mostly famine for Wilson, and at a time when the Dallas defense is struggling in discipline and understanding, it might be time to put the veteran safety on ice for a while.

Reserve safeties Juanyeh Thomas and Markquese Bell are seen by many as starting quality players stuck in backup roles in Dallas. Thomas has flashed the ability to play deep in both 2-deep looks as well as in single high safety schemes. And after a year of filling in at linebacker, Bell is more than capable of playing in the box in a thumper role but also matched up in man coverage against the likes of running backs, tight ends and slot receivers.

Depending on the gameplan, either player looks capable of taking over for Wilson, or even Malik Hooker, for portions of a game. If Mike Zimmer is planning more split safety looks that week, Thomas is the better option. If Zimmer wants an extra defender closer to the line of scrimmage, Bell is a great option. The point is he has options as his disposal.

Such a shakeup could get better production from the position, or it might just serve as a wakeup call for the starters. Either outcome would signal success.

There’s a saying, “money plays in the NFL” and that seems to carry extra weight on the Cowboys. Higher drafted players and/or players making big money typically get the benefit of the doubt in Dallas, even if they’re being outplayed by others. Wilson, playing on a fresh three-year, $21 million contract, has the seventh highest salary cap number on the team this season. It’s a status no one would guess by just watching the film this season and it’s a status that brings with it extra scrutiny when performance drops such as it has.

As things stand Thomas and Bell are chronically underused and, in some ways, misused. Thomas and Bell only have a combined 21 defensive snaps this season. That usage rate would be understandable if both starters were playing at All-Pro levels, but neither are. Of the 76 safeties Pro Football Focus has graded, Wilson ranks 48th and Hooker 64th this season. If Thomas and Bell are truly as good as many seem to think they are, they could certainly stand to steal some of the starter’s snaps on defense in coming weeks.

Such a move wouldn’t have to be absolute or permanent, but it would be tapping a resource and potentially fixing a problem.

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Mike Zimmer’s coverage philosophy just isn’t working for the 2024 Cowboys

Cowboys coverage calls are much different than 2023, and the results haven’t been good. Causation or correlation? | From @KDDrummondNFL

It’s always tough to make a one-to-one comparison between coaching staffs in the NFL. From year to year, so much changes about team personnel that it’s sometimes tough to pinpoint what changed philosophically or what changed out of necessity.

Take the Dallas Cowboys for instance. Last year’s starting cornerback tandem of Stephon Gilmore and Daron Bland have played zero snaps for the team in 2024. Can a change in the way the secondary schemes be tethered to a necessary change with Trevon Diggs return and a fifth-round rookie in Caelen Carson playing opposite him? Or is it more about Mike Zimmer implementing what has always been a much different philosophy when it comes to coverages than his predecessor Dan Quinn?

So far in 2024, there’s been a major difference between the way the secondaries have been deployed. And while it was expected for their to be a learning curve for the secondary players as Zimmer’s coverages are notoriously complicated, it’s been a dramatic shift in results.

Last season, the Cowboys were equally as likely to deploy their secondary in Cover 1, man-to-man with a centerfield deep safety, as they were in Cover 3, where the two corners play zone along with said deep safety.

This year though, Zimmer greatly cut back on the man-to-man philosophies. Cover 1 calls have dropped from 34% of snaps in 2023 to just 17% through the first four weeks of 2024. 2-Man calls, man-to-man corners with two deep safeties, have disappeared completely, going from 3% to 0% accotding to data colleted by Football Insights.

Cover 3 calls have risen from 30% of all defensive calls to 38%, but the biggest riser has been the use of Cover 6. That’s where half the field plays quarters coverage (four-deep zone) and the other half of the field is in an underneath zone.

Are the changes working?

Last year the Cowboys ranked fifth in defensive dropback EPA (expected points added) at -0.06 and seventh in defensive passing VOA (value over average). EPA measures on a per play basis how well a defense does in preventing the expectation of a score for the offense at -3.3%.

VOA is a metric that takes into account game situation and opponent strength to measure how well a unit is doing. A negative rating means the opponent is seeing less success than the average opponent.

In 2024 those numbers have plummeted. Dallas currently ranks 18th in defensive dropback EPA, allowing opponents to increase their chances of scoring with each pass at 0.041. They’re also 21st in pass-defense VOA at 12.3%.

Things have gotten decidedly worse, but the question is are these issues due to other factors, or the philosophy? Everything about the Dallas defense is worse than it was a year ago, from their run stopping ability to their pass rush. So is the coverage calling a result of trying to compensate for what’s happening in the front seven or a symptom of the same core issue?

More 3-4 looks may cover Cowboys’ temporary personnel problem

The Cowboys can’t replace Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence but maybe they don’t have to

The Cowboys essentially saved their season with their Week 4 win over the Giants, but the cost of victory was significant, losing both Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence in the process. Parsons, out 2-4 weeks with a high ankle sprain, and Lawrence, out 4-8 weeks with a Lisfranc injury, are by most accounts irreplaceable.

Parsons and Lawrence aren’t just Dallas’ top pressure players and key run defenders, but they are leaders on the field and the heart and soul of the defense. The falloff behind them appears to be immense with the rookie Marshawn Kneeland and longtime reserve Chauncey Golston slated to replace them in the starting lineup. In his fourth season, Golston has less than five career sacks to his name. Kneeland, sackless in the NFL, never logged more than 4.5 sacks in a single season in college. Based on their individual track records, it’s unlikely either player can replace half the production of the men they’re replacing.

It might be best if defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer flips the script.

Instead of inadequately filling the need at defensive end with role players, Zimmer may be better served to mix up front seven entirely. Given the strengths and weaknesses of the roster, the Cowboys could find it easier to employ a more traditional odd man front that leans on the defensive tackles rather than the defensive ends.

Contrary to popular belief many 3-4 and 4-3 fronts are extremely similar. Just because these are changes in personnel groupings doesn’t mean they change the system being played. The Cowboys already bounce between odd and even fronts frequently, using under, over and BEAR looks, including a 3-3-5. It wouldn’t be a fundamental change for Zimmer’s defense per say, just an effort to avoid plugging a round hole with a square peg.

Under this proposal the pressure players would come largely from the linebacker ranks. Dallas’ most explosive player, DeMarvion Overshown, could man an outside LB spot and serve as the chief pass rusher. The other outside LB spot could be filled by someone like Carl Lawson who has played that very role in both the NFL and back at Auburn.

Mazi Smith and Linval Joseph would rotate as the nose tackle and Osa Odighizuwa looks perfectly capable of being a playmaking defensive end. The other DE spot could be handled by a number of players including Kneeland and Golston. As 3-4 DEs they wouldn’t need to be the explosive players Parsons and Lawrence were because the playmaking roles would be on the edge LBs.

For the first time in a while the strength of the roster appears to be the LB position, so it only makes sense for the Cowboys to lean on it. And given Dallas’ issues defending the run this season, mixing things up could be just what this defense needs.

Moving to more three-man fronts sounds like a bigger change than it really is. It allows the Cowboys to lean on the strength of their roster and with any luck survive the losses of the team’s best playmakers.

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Teams are eliminating this unique Cowboys weapon, so how will Dallas fix it?

Teams are avoiding KaVonate Turpin and it’s time the Cowboys figure out how to stop that. | From @ReidDHanson

Let’s run through a quick strategy session, shall we? Let’s say an opposing team is fielding two kick returners. One of those returners is a reserve safety with average speed and below average return ability. The other returner is an actual kick return specialist with elite speed and Pro Bowl return ability. How would you handle this situation as the kicking team?

If you answered, “kick it to the reserve safety” you’re not alone. Each of the Cowboys opponents this season has opted to target the safety, Juanyeh Thomas, rather than the professional return man, KaVonate Turpin. It’s not hard to see why either. Turpin is one of the most feared return men in the game today. If given the choice between the two, no one in their right mind would target Turpin. It’s why the former TCU star only has two returns on the season while Thomas has six.

https://twitter.com/GehlkenNFL/status/1561395165071380481

This strategy has rendered Turpin nothing more than a lead blocker on the kick return unit. At 5-foot-9, 153-pounds, he’s not exactly the ideal blocker, but if teams are kicking away from him what else is he supposed to do?

It seems there’s a Turpin avoidance problem at the moment in Dallas and it’s incumbent on the Cowboys to figure out a solution.

One possible solution is upgrading the return spot next to Turpin. Thomas is averaging just 24 yards per return this season, well below league average and significantly below Turpin’s 34.5. Thomas also has the fourth most return attempts in the NFL, indicating it’s not a product of sample size.

It stands to reason a more explosive player could produce better results in the role. Possible solutions are Deuce Vaughn, Rico Dowdle, Jalen Tolbert and Ryan Flournoy. Given Donovan Wilson’s volativity at safety, Thomas could really stand to get more snaps at safety anyway.

Another possible solution is to fight the opponent’s predictability with unpredictability. Opponents are predictably targeting the player opposite Turpin so what if the Cowboys disguise which side of the field Turpin is on?

If both return men begin the process positioned in the middle of the field, making a break to their respective sides only when the kicking motion has begun, they will remove the kicking team’s ability to target specific players. It would give Turpin a 50-50 shot at returning the ball which would be a marked improvement over what he’s getting today.

What the Cowboys can’t do is keep allowing teams to dictate the terms of a return because they’re just going to keep targeting the man not named “Turpin” every time. In that case the Cowboys might as well just take Turpin off the field altogether and replace him with an actual lead blocker since that’s all he’s been doing anyway.

It’s innovation time in Dallas. John Fassel and crew are facing a very predictable situation right now and they need to find ways to work around it.

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Spy vs Spy: These 3 Cowboys defenders hope to minimize Lamar Jackson’s impact for Ravens

The Cowboys have three spy options for Lamar Jackson and the Ravens in Week 3. | From @ReidDHanson

The Cowboys are notoriously dreadful against dual-threat quarterbacks. They routinely give up massive gains on scrambles, critical conversions on third downs and undisciplined execution on designed read-options to athletic QBs.

Dallas’ heavy use of man coverage, specifically Cover 1 looks, only compounds the damage since cover cornerbacks are playing with their backs to the QB. These coverages probably won’t change with Mike Zimmer at the helm on defense.

Like Dan Quinn, Zimmer loves man coverage, and given the Ravens propensity to run, coupled with Dallas’ struggles to stop said run, the Cowboys will likely once again lean on Cover 1 in Week 3. That’s because playing with just one deep safety means Dallas gets an extra player in the box which is something the Cowboys could desperately use.

Lamar Jackson, Baltimore’s explosive weapon at the position, isn’t just a good rushing QB, he’s by most accounts the best rushing QB in the NFL. The two-time NFL MVP is lightning fast with the ability to start and stop on a dime. He makes the other dual threats in the NFL look like they’re running in mud.

The Ravens utilize Jackson as one would expect – a runner. They frequently call designed runs, read options, zone reads, and even RPOs with a QB run element attached (RPO’s don’t inherently have run options for QBs attached).

Even the Ravens passing game leaves run options open for Jackson. Tuck-and-run is often his second read on plays so the Dallas defense will have to be prepared for a QB run every single down.

Normally this would spell certain doom for the Cowboys. That’s especially true coming off their embarrassing efforts in Week 2 against the Saints. But the Cowboys have a couple aces up their sleeves that could prove difference makers in Sunday’s showdown. They have DeMarvion Overshown and Marist Liufau.

The Cowboys’ two young linebackers are as explosive as it gets from the LB position. Overshown has a level of click-and-close that makes even Micah Parsons look mortal. Liufau is a hyper intelligent player known to play like his hair on fire for all 60 minutes. Both are positioned to serve as QB spys this Sunday. Both could be the difference maker in the Cowboys ability to stop Jackson.

There’s a debate raging over which one will be tasked with the job. Liufau is typically in base packages while Overshown is in for nickel packages. After shining like a star in Week 1, Overshown took the backseat in Week 2. The reason behind that is the Saints heavy use of 12 and 21 personnel warranted more base packages from Dallas last week.

Week 3 could bring a similar reaction from Zimmer since the Ravens have only played 11 personnel (3WR, which prompts nickel defense) 26.2 percent of the time this season. Unless Zimmer changes his packages, Liufau should expect the bulk of the snaps.

Dallas has also hinted at Parsons doing some spy work. Given Zimmer’s use of complicated and/or deceitful blitz packages, he could very well fake a pass rush and then drop Parsons into a spy role at times on Sunday. Based on what we know, Liufau will likely get the most spy opportunities with Overshown plugged in as a close second. Parsons or even a safety could be used in select situations behind them.

Will it be effective?

That’s anyone’s guess but the Cowboys seem to finally have some solid options on their staff who can successfully fill this role, which is much more than they’ve ever appeared to have in the past. Which spy on the Cowboys will be the biggest difference maker?

Everyone is about to find out.

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