Who do you think are the most important players on the Cowboys roster right now?
Training camp practices for the Dallas Cowboys will officially begin on Tuesday. That will start the clock for six weeks of evaluation, where the team will determine which players will make up their 53-man roster for the 2025 season. A lot will happen between now and then, but before camp gets started, we thought we’d step back and take a bird’s-eye view of what this roster currently looks like.
Here is a way-too-early pre-camp rankings of the team’s top 80 players:
Here are some things that jump out…
The top 3 haven’t changed
It’s still CeeDee Lamb, Micah Parsons, and Dak Prescott holding down the top spots, and the order hasn’t changed (check out last year’s rankings if you are interested). These three are the team’s “money guys,” and have the contracts to prove it (well, as soon as the Parsons deal gets done). Unfortunately, all of them got hurt last year and missed action. Hopefully, better health and better performance can right the ship this season, and it all starts with these three.
Some stars are hurt
Two of the team’s top eight players are dealing with bad knee injuries. Trevon Diggs looked like one of the top corners in the league in 2021, but back-to-back season-ending knee injuries have cast a dark shadow on his future. Will he return to his old self? Is he falling out of favor within the organization? What to expect from Diggs this year is very difficult to project.
Speaking of enigmas, it looked as if the Cowboys had landed another rising defensive star as linebacker DeMarvion Overshown was shot out of a cannon and into the backfield of the opposition last season. Sadly, he suffered a knee injury toward the end of the year that was so bad that his 2025 is in jeopardy. And then there’s the question: when he does return, will he be the same player? There are lots of questions when it comes to these two defensive stars.
Rookies are hard to rank
It’s an exercise in futility to attempt to project how good rookies are, but that will never stop us from trying. It’s all based on what they showed in college and any hype that’s occurred since the draft. It’s easy to be excited about what they can do and over-project, so keep that in mind. As a frame of reference, here is where we had the team’s top rookies last year compared to now:
- Tyler Guyton = was 17, dropped to 26
- Marshawn Kneeland = was 19, moved up to 14
- Cooper Beebe = was 21, moved up to 15
- Marist Liufau = was 23, moved up to 16
- Caelen Carson = was 33, dropped to 50
- Ryan Flournoy = was 49, dropped to 65
Most of the premium picks from a year ago impressed, with the first-rounder Guyton the only one who disappointed. Similarly, all the team’s Day 1 and 2 draft picks are ranked inside the top 25, so expectations are high for this new draft class.
What does it mean for roster projections?
If we just went off of talent alone and “trusted our board,” the way-too-early 53-man roster projection would look as follows:
Because of position group needs, this isn’t likely to stick. The Cowboys aren’t keeping five running backs, and they’re not rolling with just four healthy corners. Some finagling will need to happen, but this list still gives us an idea of what the roster might look like. Again, there’s a lot of time before final roster cuts, so let’s see how things play out, and we’ll check in later to see what’s changed.