2025 NFL Training Camp: Cowboys’ First Look Under Brian Schottenheimer + Who’s Expected to Show?

2025 NFL Training Camp: Cowboys’ First Look Under Brian Schottenheimer + Who’s Expected to Show?

Well, the Cowboys loaded up and ready for camp in SoCal. The boys getting ready to roll with another summer field with questions such as what a healthy Dak Prescott looks like, Parson’s contract situation, and probably the biggest storyline under the radar. Brian Shanheimimer, year one as the head coach of the Cowboys is a big deal when it comes to the off season this past. Compared to others, Jerry Jones has been busy kind of retooling and helping Shotty maybe with this roster rebuild. But if you ask all pro guard Tyler Smith about this year’s expectations, they are pretty high. Super Bowl champions. That’s always the expectation. So yeah. You think that’s a realistic goal? I think it is a realistic goal because we we can win the Super Bowl. Like why not? Why Why can’t we win? We couldn’t even get a helmet on. Thank you, Tyler. Appreciate it as always. It just it’s always super early, but this is what we’re dealing with when it’s the Cowboys. Take a look at it. When it some comes to some of those offseason moves, a lot of of those familiar faces taking talents elsewhere. Demarcus Lawrence was a longtime Cowboy now out there in Seattle. Jordan Lewis that slot DB hard and so I like to say when it comes that secondary now in Jacksonville, but the additions, there’s a few out there. Jerry has been busy as I mentioned. George Pickkins the biggest of them all. Wide receiver one or two depending on how you see it. Others some moves there to help some depth when it comes to what we’ve seen in the past. All right, joining us now our Cowboys insider Garrett Podell aka Jerry Jones best buddy now in the making there. Uh before we get into this roster here, Garrett, have to start with the man in charge, Brian Shinahimer, year one. It’s a big deal that maybe has been flying under the radar, but had a few tweaks to maybe changing the culture. What have you seen or heard from Shotti and that effect he’s had so far? Brandon, very happy to join you here on the first day of Cowboys training camp and and yes, his big kind of vibe shift has been compete every day and that’s been in an effort to kind of bring all sides of the roster together. For example, he’s got a 10-ft basketball hoop in the players lounge, the team facility. He has a mini basketball hoop in his office. Something he challenged new wide receiver George Pickkins to, he told me right after he first met him. and he said it’s to kind of bring everybody together. And I think kind of the biggest um example of that is in the locker room. They moved a ping pong table in the middle of there. And on the last day mandatory mini camp when I was in there observing and talking to players before break, uh Jay Toya, the seventh round rookie, defensive tackle, and Micah Parsons were going head-to-head in a pingpong battle. And that had the entire locker room. CD Lamb, Dak Prescott, Pickkins, everyone standing around the table yelling, hooting and hollering, kind of bringing the team together because you mentioned Demarcus Lawrence leaving. He and Michael Parsons had a little Twitter spat about the culture and was everybody on the same page and really locking in focus. So, Shanheimer’s been really intentional about bringing the team together in those ways and then also just with little personal touches here and there. He told me when Osao Odigizua, the defensive tackle, the Cowboys resigned to a four-year $80 million contract just prior to the start of free agency, he sent him a bottle of champagne at the restaurant he was at, uh, celebrating out to dinner with his family. So, it’s kind of been about the personal touch and using competition to bring guys together to have kind of a more cohesive unit going into 2025. Speaking of competition, uh, we have a papa shot here now, Garrett. I know it wasn’t here when you were here, but I took down our big boss Tracy just a couple weeks ago. I’m just putting it out there when we talk about competition, but Micah Parsons, you kind of touched on a little bit. The biggest thing around him is a new contract and the rumor swirling the two sides are getting closer. It might be resolved during camp. So much surrounding Parsons. What have you heard about this situation? It’s interesting, Brandon, because I spoke to Parsons. I’ve spoken to him a number of times this offseason, but after the week 17 or 18 finale against Washington, I was standing in the hallway of AT&T Stadium and he said to me that he was going to set a meeting with Jerry Jones early because he knows Jerry likes to take his time, really deliberate about these contract extensions. So they met in Jerry’s suite at the college football playoff semi-final Cotton Bowl match up between Ohio State and Texas in early January to get the ball rolling on that extension because Micah has repeated over and over again that he has quote a sense of urgency to get this done. Wanted to carve out cap space so the Cowboys could be big players in free agency. And so he’s been really intentional talking to Jerry about it. He and Jerry Jones have had direct one-on-one conversations about it. and he’s kind of encouraged Jerry to bring in agent David Moligetta into the fold and kind of hammer out the fine details and get this deal done. Jerry, you know, he’s kind of joked about not really knowing David Mulligetta’s name, which of course he knows because he’s uh has clients on the Cowboys and high-powered stars around the league. And you know, this is something that Jerry appreciated Micah showing up to mandatory mini camp. I watched as Jerry talked to Micah during 11 on 111 work at mandatory mini camp. uh and and they really uh had a heartto-he heart. Jerry said, “I appreciate the leadership you’ve shown.” As you can see here, Micah, unlike some other guys like Trey Hendrickson, TJ Watt when he wasn’t signed, practiced at mandatory mini camps. You can see some of these pictures I took here. And that just showed that Micah is all in on the team and being a leader. So, he’s done everything right, gotten all the leadership brownie points uh that Jerry wanted to see. So, now it’s time for Jerry uh to get this deal done. You would think that after CD Lamb held out a training camp last year before getting his deal by the time they got back to Frisco from Oxnard, California at the end of camp that this would get done pretty soon here. But uh this is Jerry Jones. He kind of operates on a deadlines make deals mentality and the ball is squarely in Jerry’s court now to get one of the best pass rushers in the league done. We talk about a yesterday’s price is not today’s price and we just saw with TJ Wat and of course Micah in that same ballpark. So Jerry keep waiting and playing that game if you want to. He’s going to rob the bank. Uh I want to take a look at some of those position battles because that’s mainly what training camp is about getting the business out the way with the head coach and the money problems. What battle are you watching the most out of all the positions there? I mean, I think the most uh exciting position val battle for fans is clearly the running backs, right? Because it’s a clean slate. For years, you had prime Ezekiel Elliott, Tony Pard made the Pro Bowl as the Cowboys running back. And Rico Dao last year, first undrafted Cowboys running back to go for over a thousand yard. He’s now a Carolina Panther. Brand new running back room. They bring in Denver Broncos leading rusher, Javante Williams, who was a second round pick back in 2021. Miles Sanders who’s with the Eagles and most recently the Panthers and uh Javvante Williams he’s probably the leader in the clubhouse entering training camp because I asked Shanheimer to kind of give me a breakdown in the running back room at the end of mini camp and he said Javvante’s really stood out with quote his intentionality at practice and he remembers saying to Dak Prescott, hey tell Javvante to do this for a certain uh pass blocking assignment on a play and Dak looked back at Shotheimimer and Dak pulled Seanheimer, quote, “Javvante’s a valadictorian.” So, that kind of shows just the mastery Williams already has the offense. Both he and Sanders, the vets are kind of in the driver’s seat early entering mini camp. Uh, but look out for Jayon Blue, their fifth round rookie running back pick out of Texas. He’s somebody who when Will Mcclelay was asked about Jaden Blue on the end of the draft, he used the word explosive not once, not twice, not three times, four times. Will Mcclelay, the VP of player personnel, uh, used the word explosive to describe Blue. Uh, Seanimer at the end of mini camp said, you know, a lot of these college players, they look to the sideline to read the cards to get the plays in. So, if Blue can master the playbook, he’ll certainly be a factor as well at camp. It’ll be exciting to see when the pads come on because that’s really when you can evaluate these guys uh as runners and that’s what we’ll find out here in Oxnard, California coming up these next few weeks. Yeah, we’ll see how that running back position looks. Blue, a lot of people were saying he’s a faster version of Tony Pard, but I can’t wait to see like you said till we get the pads on. Before I let you go, we got about 30 seconds here. I need you to put in professor cap. Hey, give me a grade about this offseason about the Cowboys because they made a lot of moves. They’ve kind of been under the radar when it comes to those headlines outside of the Micah thing. What are you giving them in terms of a grade? I’d give them a B minus because it was an improvement in their free agency spending this year. A year ago, they spent the fewest amount of money. Kind of allowed Mike McCarthy to go into 2024 as a lame duck. They did, you know, bolster the roster, signing Solomon Thomas at defensive tackle, uh making trades, getting Kyler Elum, a former first round pick corner from the Bills to bolster their uh secondary. So, I I I like some of the depth chart moves they made. The George Pickkins trade uh to me was fantastic because even if he leaves a year from now in free agency, they can get a compensatory pick that’s close to that third round pick value uh that they parted with in that trade. So, I loved the George Pickkins move, but I can only go as high as B minus because when you don’t have the league’s best pass rusher, Micah Parsons, who’s 330 quarterback pressures since he entered the NFL in 2021, tied for the most in the NFL, when you don’t have a guy like that signed under long-term contract when he’s taken the onus to really get the ball rolling on those talks, can’t go higher than B minus. But the draft was solid and uh free agency, they did all right. All right, Garrett, I called you before this segment, Jerry’s best friend. You have 46 days into the first game to get that one-on-one with Jerry and the Jets. So, you got to do it. It’s It’s already out there. You got to do it. Can we get that done? We’ll see. I’ll get back. Do you have me back on and you’ll you’ll find out. See See, I know I can count on you as always. Garrett Podell tapped in with the Cowboys. Appreciate it, my friend. Taking a look at some of those dates when it comes to everything surrounding the Cowboys. As I mentioned, 46 days to that meeting with the Champs and the Eagles. Thursday night, week one under the lights. It’s going to be scary in Philly taking on the Giants and Bears and Packers and Jets those first five weeks and then we’ll see the second half of the season 11 through 16. It’s going to be a barn burner. Good luck. Good luck to us all. I don’t know if that one’s going to happen, but I hope it does on the PJ. It it has to happen. Buddy, they got to come pick you up tonight. I want no parts of that. I’m good. I’m going to have some words for Jerry. I’m I’m going have some words. They will not be kind. There’s been a lot of this.

Garrett Podell joins CBS Sports HQ to discuss the Dallas Cowboys’ 2025 NFL Training Camps.

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR CHANNEL:
https://www.youtube.com/user/CBSSports

WATCH
CBS Sports HQ: https://www.cbssports.com/live/
Paramount Plus: https://www.paramountplus.com

FOLLOW US ON:
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/CBSSports/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/cbssports/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/CBSSports

#NFL #trainingcamp #cowboys