Yahoo Sports NFL analyst Nate Tice and NFL writer Charles McDonald look at the Cowboys defense and discuss if they’re still a top-10 unit or have fallen out of the elite group. Hear the full conversation on “Football 301” – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

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Video Transcript

Moving on to your number eight team who I actually was a little higher and I’m excited to talk about this.

Who’s your teacher?

Am I too old?

Am I too old on them?

I don’t know, am I too high?

I am at number three for reference and am I too high of them?

I feel like I honestly, I want to leave them off the list entirely.

Uh just to, to be spicy, I thought about it, I want to leave them, but I feel like you do have to kind of respect getting digs back that with bland that that’s going to cause a lot of quarterbacks problems just making plays on the ball.

Um Obviously still that Michael Parsons, Marcus Lawrence is still a solid player.

Then I started looking at, I still look at the middle of his defense and I’m like, uh it’s based on what we know right now.

I still think this is probably one of the weaker run defenses in the NFL, but man, they are going to make a ton of plays against the pass.

Uh And also I think you can say that they might have upgraded defensive play calling this, this off season.

That is what got me back there.

It is, you hit it right at the end.

I said I was originally gonna have to, this is literally my note.

I was gonna have Dallas Lower and I remember Mike Zimmer is here and it perked me up a little bit and that’s what brought me back.

I think his defense is just because of Dan nature’s nature of his defenses and Mike Zimmer’s nature of his defenses just look at their personalities.

It’s just going to be more sound, it’s just going to be have more structure to it, which at first you’d be like, well, you know, wasn’t that a good thing was how chaotic they created everything?

I don’t know.

I think it’s actually gonna be a little better when you kind of maybe get Mica pointed in the right direction a few more times and get all these guys playing on the same page.

But then the back end has got what got me excited and Zimmer with D Bs and with DB group like this, that speed and versatility that has me excited.

Uh because that, that’s what Zimmer does really well with.

And also, like you said, they can create a pass rush this defense.

My only hot take on this will be, this defense will be first on third down this week.

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