[Ed note:] A guest post from long-time NFL writer Doug Farrar.
The time between when free agency and the draft have concluded and the start of the regular season is the few-month period in which hope truly springs eternal. Every player is in better shape than they’ve ever been before, every new head coach is the next Bill Walsh, every new position coach is either the next Sid Gillman or the next Dick LeBeau, and every move your favorite team made in the offseason will coalesce perfectly to form a Super Bowl champion.
Of course, reality usually sinks in sooner than later, but we’re not here to get into that – we’re here to spread fairy dust and belief juice as much as possible. In our new “Hidden Gems” series, we’re taking a detailed look at three impact players for each NFL team – one underrated veteran, one underrated free-agent signing, and one underrated draft pick.
We begin with the Dallas Cowboys, whose owner/president/general manager (Jerry Jones) and Son of Jerrah/co-owner/executive vice president/CEO/director of player personnel (Stephen Jones) are even better at handing out optimism in the face of personnel shortfalls as they are at handing out titles to each other.
Underrated veteran: WR Jalen Tolbert
Everybody even remotely familiar with the Cowboys’ current offense knows full well that the receiver corps is far too thin. Last season, CeeDee Lamb was targeted 146 times, which represented 36.1% of Dallas’ receiver targets. Not what you want to go into a season with, and after refusing to accentuate that group with a single move in free agency or the draft, the Jones Boys are stuck trying to explain the process.
Jerry Jones said after the draft that “the train has not left the station” when it came to bringing in more receiver help, and Stephen Jones recently said this about the guys behind Lamb on the depth chart – with Jalen Tolbert, Jonathan Mingo, and KaVontae Turpin as the primary secondaries:
“Those guys have potential to be a No. 2, but they’re not there yet. They haven’t done it. They haven’t hit that level yet, and that’s why we have had an interest in upgrading that room.”
Well, unless a trade is in the works, the remaining receivers in free agency don’t offer a ton. When you’re trying to make a receiver room work with Keenan Allen, Amari Cooper, or Tyler Boyd at the top of the list, you’re pretty much trying to put up a wall in your house with nothing but spackle. No disrespect to any of those fine gentlemen and what they’ve achieved in their careers, but we are where we are with all that.
The good news after all that bad news is that Stephen Jones might be underestimating one of his own with the assumption that Jalen Tolbert hasn’t shown enough to be a true No. 2 receiver in the offense now run by Brian Schottenheimer and Klayton Adams. Last season, the 2022 third-round pick from South Alabama had a career year in which he caught 49 passes on 74 targets for 610 yards and seven touchdowns. Whether outside or in the slot, the 6’1, 195-pound Tolbert has the speed to simply outrun cornerbacks and an evolved sense of the position’s nuances. Tolbert can shake a defender out of his shoes, and his ability to make catches in contested situations really shows up on tape.
“I know what I can do,” Tolbert said in a recent interview. “I know what I’m capable of, and so like I say, when opportunities come, just keep making the most of them, and that’s my goal. Keep working, doing what I’ve been doing, keep making strides, keep taking jumps, and proving everybody wrong.”
Tolbert’s “jumps’ in career progression are both figurative and literal, so don’t be surprised if he does become that precious No. 2 receiver in 2025… because he was already that to a point in 2024.
Before we automatically assume that the Cowboys’ receiver group will be CeeDee Lamb and the Pips again, it might be time to take another good look at Jalen Tolbert’s 2024 season. He could have a real breakout 2025. pic.twitter.com/W01GwyL06m
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) May 1, 2025
Underrated free-agent signing: EDGE Dante Fowler Jr.
Speaking of position groups led by a superstar and undermanned elsewhere, there’s the Cowboys’ edge rushers. That Micah Parsons guy is pretty good, which is an obvious check in the plus column. Now, Jerry Jones just has to figure out how to get that dude a second contract.
Last season, Parsons’ 14 sacks and 70 total pressures made up 43.8% of the team’s 32 quarterback takedowns, and 43% of the team’s 163 quarterback disruptions from the edge. Chauncey Golston, who was responsible for seven sacks and 37 pressures, is now a New York Giant. DeMarcus Lawrence, who bagged three sacks and nine pressures in an injury-scuttled season, now lives in Seattle.
The Cowboys did get Boston College’s Donovan Ezeiruaku in the second round of the draft, and that’s meaningful, because Ezeiruaku is one of the best pass-rushers in the 2025 class. But if Ezeiruaku suffers the same fate as most edge rushers making the transition from the NCAA to the NFL, and it takes a year to get the hang of what it takes to terrorize quarterbacks at the next level, someone will have to be the bridge.
In this case, it’s a familiar face, as the Cowboys went Old Home Week by signing Dante Fowler Jr. to a one-year, $6 million contract with $5 million guaranteed. It’s not often that an edge defender turns it up a few notches in his age 30 season, but Fowler did just that after two years in Dallas from 2022-2023 in which he totaled 11 sacks and 76 total pressures. Not bad for a two-year stretch. When Fowler followed Dan Quinn to the Washington Commanders on a one-year, $3.25 million deal with $1.43 million guaranteed, the Commanders got quite a bargain. In 2024, Fowler totaled 11 sacks and 50 total pressures on just 387 pass-rushing snaps.
The difference between the Dante Fowler who spent those two seasons in Dallas, and the Dante Fowler that ramped up his pressure production? When Dan Quinn was the Cowboys’ defensive coordinator in 2022 and 2023, he deployed Fowler much more as a straight-up edge rusher designed to beat the tackle to the outside of the arc. When both Quinn and Fowler moved to the nation’s capital last season, the focus on Fowler’s skill set was clear – Fowler was used far more as a gap-shooting weapon in stunts and overload fronts, and it worked marvelously. Fowler is more of a speed player than a pure speed-to-power guy, so the best way to use his physical assets is to bomb offensive lines with that multi-gap speed.
Eberflus does have an interesting history with stunts and using speed-rushers to penetrate blockers with the one-on-one matchups that overload fronts provide, so it’s entirely imaginable that he’ll be able to bring out the most in Fowler’s game, just as Quinn finally did.
“I know this is going to be a fast, physical defense,” Fowler said of his reunion in Big D. “ I’m looking forward to it. I’m a hybrid, so I can adjust to anything. … Whatever the scheme is, I’m going to adapt to it, I’m going to adjust to it, and I’ll be ready to go.”
If Eberflus plays to his strengths, Fowler could be even more ready than you may remember.
Dan Quinn and Dante Fowler Jr. were together in Dallas in 2022-2023. Then, they both went to Washington in 2024, and Fowler’s production nearly doubled. The difference? Quinn used Fowler more as a gap-shooting stunt weapon, and it paid off. Time for Matt Eberflus to stunt-fu. pic.twitter.com/cfsNYHfCIS
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) May 1, 2025
Underrated draft pick: CB Shavon Revel Jr.
Don’t you hate when bad things happen to good people?
Shavon Revel Jr. was a no-star recruit out of high school who impressed East Carolina’s coaches and got himself a scholarship once he improved his grade point average. In 2023, his first season as a starter with the Pirates and his second overall, Revel allowed just 19 catches on 42 targets for 250 yards, 55 yards after the catch, one touchdown, one interception, nine pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 62.6. Revel knocked it out of the park against bigger schools like Michigan and SMU, and all kinds of bigger schools offered him major transfer portal dollars to jump ship.
“Just the fact that he came back when he could’ve left so easily,” former East Carolina defensive coordinator and current head coach Blake Harrell recently said of Revel. “He could’ve left for almost 10 times the money probably. In my mind, that makes him a legend, especially in this day and era, when a guy wants to stick around to finish out his career where he started…
“For that young man to come back and what he means to Pirate nation, what he means to East Carolina and the loyalty he showed this place, you won’t find that much anymore and you won’t see that much in college football, but I’m sure glad he did.”
Revel wasn’t 100% happy about it after suffering a torn ACL in practice that cost him all but three games in his 2024 campaign. Revel was on his way to even better things, allowing eight catches on 21 targets for 195 yards, 41 yards after the catch, one touchdown, two interceptions, two pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 48.8.
It was only because of that injury that the Cowboys were able to commit larceny by getting Ravel with the 76th overall pick in the third round. If Ravel comes back fully healthy, he’s got tape that shows him to be as adept in coverage as any cornerback prospect in this draft class – especially in press coverage, which is where the NFL is trending.
“You’re getting a guy who can cover, play up in somebody’s face, deny coverage, take the easy access throws away, but also run guys down the field,” Harrell concluded. “Usually when you get up in a guy’s face, you worry about giving up the deep ball and getting beat deep, but he certainly has the athleticism to turn and run with guys down the field.
“He’ll be a Cowboy through and through, and give you everything he’s got to this program.”
Which would be a very good thing for a secondary that has seen Trevon Diggs on the field for just 13 games over the last two seasons.
Shavon Revel Jr. turned down major dollars from bigger schools last season to stay at East Carolina. His “reward” was a torn ACL that cut his 2024 season short. The Cowboys got a massive steal in the third round, because this is first-round tape all day long. pic.twitter.com/FpbTD9y9tx
— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) May 1, 2025
Which players are your Dallas Cowboys secret superstars this season? Share your thoughts in the comments!