(Editor’s Note: Time to check the mail! The DallasCowboys.com staff writers answer your questions here in ‘Mailbag’ presented by Miller Lite.)<\/p>\n
It seems like the Cowboys have struggled to consistently draft defensive players while they are one of the best at drafting offensive guys. Is there a reason why? Are some teams just better at evaluating and selecting talent on one side of the ball than the other? What’s the fix?\u2013Mitchell Harris*\/Phoenix*,AZ<\/p>\n
Patrik: I don’t think it’s a problem on a macro scale for the Cowboys. This is the same team that found a First-team All-Pro in the fifth round (DaRon Bland), and granted Bland has struggled with availability but that doesn’t change the fact. Recently, there’s plenty of promise from Shemar James, a late-round pick, and I suspect Marist Liufau was simply held back by the 2025 defensive coaching staff, given the fact he fired out of the gate as a rookie in 2024. I can continue here, e.g., DeMarvion Overshown, Osa Odighizuwa, even mentioning the upside on the late Marshawn Kneeland, so, no, I don’t think there’s an overarching issue scouting and drafting defense. Oh, and they drafted Micah Parsons, so there’s that. I think it’s more true that the Cowboys’ mistakes are amplified (though the whiff on Mazi Smith, Taco Charlton were admittedly tied to their first-round status). Every team has misses … but tell me about the Jaguars’ or Panthers’ misses, if you can. Thus, my point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Editor’s Note: Time to check the mail! The DallasCowboys.com staff writers answer your questions here in ‘Mailbag’ presented…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,417,4661,420,1901,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-773148","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-news-all-news","10":"tag-news-mailbag","11":"tag-news-patrik-walker","12":"tag-news-tommy-yarrish","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116125555996512705","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}