Photo Credit: Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News
As the reigning NFC East champs, Dallas no longer looks like the team who chokes or the team with the QB who can’t play. With Tony Romo and Dez Bryant both out, it looked like the team would be destined to completely fizzle out and leave the fighting to the Giants, Eagles and Redskins. Well maybe not the Redskins, but there’s one thing that people really aren’t focusing on with Dallas and that’s their defense.
Last year, Dallas has one of the worst defenses in the NFL and in comparison to their offensive line, Dallas looked completely mismatched. This year, though, their defense is receiving the spotlight that they truly deserve and it’s all thanks to a few guys, but one of them really sticks out. Their 2015 first-round draft pick, Byron Jones is really living up to what some have said before he was drafter and is better than what the Cowboys expected.
Even though Randy Gregory is out for now, he was a steal in the second round and made an impact immediately on the field. When Greg Hardy is finally cleared to play, the defense will get some much-needed help with guys like Orlando Scandrick and Rolando McClain out. Guys like Tyler Patmon, Jeremy Mincey, and Nick Hayden also help to give some meat to the already loaded defense.
The one guy who is really the shining star, no pun intended is Cowboys OLB Sean Lee. Last year during OTAs, rookie Zack Martin impressed Sean Lee a little too much and collided with him which resulted in a torn ACL and the loss of Lee’s season. Simply put, Cowboys fans were not thrilled that Martin was the cause of it but with a 12-4 record courtesy of him, all seemed to be forgiven and with Lee back now, fans are more than excited.
Coming into this season, it was unclear how good Lee would actually be but all of those fears seemed to fly right out in the window against the Eagles. Lee was an animal in the game, taking down the offense one by one and making sure that everyone knew his name.
In their game against the Eagles, Lee racked up 14 combined tackles and picked up an interception in the Eagles’ end zone. Lee’s not making a comeback, however, because before his injury, he was still making big plays. With 12 interceptions in his career, two forced fumbles, 317 combined tackles and now an NFC Defensive Player Of The Week, Lee could be holding the ticket to Dallas’ trip into the postseason. When Lee, Romo and Bryant are all together, the NFC East better watch out because the Cowboys will be out for blood.
