Why the Cowboys’ pass rush couldn’t save their pass defense

In a recent post on the Cowboys’ pass rush, we saw that the 2025 Cowboys ranked sixth in pressure rate despite ranking just 22nd in sacks.

Of course, pressuring the passer only works if your secondary is any good. And the 2025 Cowboys secondary was the exact opposite of whatever “good” is, ranking just 31st in the league with a 109.6 defensive passer rating. If you’re in the “if only they’d had more sacks” school of thought, consider that in 2024, when the Cowboys were third in total sacks and still had Micah Parsons, they also ranked at the bottom of the league (28th) in defensive passer rating.

The lesson is hard to ignore: generating pressure is only half the equation. What happens after the ball leaves the quarterback’s hand matters just as much – and for the Cowboys in 2025, it mattered a lot more. And that’s what we’re going to focus on today.

We’ll first look at the overall pass defense performance and then deep-dive into the different position groups. We’ll be using two key metrics along the way:

Burn rate: number of catches a defensive player allows versus the number of balls thrown at the receiver he is covering. For example, a burn rate of 80% would mean that opponents have completed eight of ten passes thrown at the receiver the defensive player was covering.

Defensive Passer Rating: uses the same data and formula as the better known passer rating for the quarterback ( i.e. completion percentage, yard per attempt, touchdowns and interceptions), but applies them to a defender, where they become completion percentage allowed (aka ‘burn rate’), yards per attempt allowed, touchdowns allowed and interceptions made.

Have you ever wondered where opposing quarterbacks are throwing the ball against the Cowboys, and how successful they are? No? Well I did, so I reverse engineered the game-by-game stats at ProFootballFocus.com to come up with the nifty little graphic below which breaks down the 2025 passer rating and burn rate of the Cowboys’ 2025 opponents by pass direction and -distance.

A couple of things stand out immediately. The Cowboys generated pressure, but opposing quarterbacks rarely had to hold the football long enough for it to matter. There was almost always somebody open underneath.

You’ll notice that the burn rate in the six quadrants below the yellow line (i.e. less than 10 yards down the field) is quite high – 86% on 282 for 327 passing – which might be an indicator for why the pressure the Cowboys are generating is not leading to a better pass defense: if the QB can just dump off the ball to a receiver with a seven to 10-yard cushion, or simply target anybody covered by a linebacker, the opposing QB doesn’t even need a hot read anymore, because there’s always going to be people running free underneath.

Also, 46% of passing yards allowed by the Cowboys defense are generated by passes completed between the numbers – and that’s despite playing Jalen Hurts and his fear of the middle, not once but twice. Perhaps the middle of the field is where the communication issues hurt the Cowboys the most as blown coverages by linebackers, corners, and safeties allowed opponents to roam freely across the middle.

And finally, the Cowboys secondary allowed a defensive passer rating (DPR) of 110 or more in five of the six quadrants beyond the yellow line (i.e. ten yards or more downfield), making this defense the perfect complement for a Rex Grossman-like play style.

Stats by Position

Some analytical housekeeping: in official NFL team box scores, every official pass attempt by the opposing offense must be accounted for as a target. PFF, which we’ll be using for the individual stats later on, excludes specific types of throws from their defensive player tallies.

Unassigned Targets (Throwaways and Spikes): When an opposing quarterback throws the ball away or spikes it, the NFL counts it as an official pass attempt. PFF does not assign a target to any individual defensive player on a throwaway or spike because no defender was actually covering a receiver.
Clear Overthrows: If a quarterback overthrows a receiver by 15 yards or throws into a completely vacant zone due to a broken route, the NFL log still charts a target to the intended receiver. PFF often omits these if no defender was in a position to realistically make a play on the ball.

The difference is notable: the traditional box score shows the Cowboys defense with 556 targets and a 109.6 defensive passer rating, while PFF shows only 504 assigned targets, which in turn drives DPR to 121.5, with all else remaining equal.

Most of us are quite used to the traditional passer rating, and may feel the PFF-based DPR (without unassigned targets and overthrows) are quite high. The following table shows how to evaluate the individual DPR numbers.

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Positional Ranking	Description	Linebacker DPR	Corner DPR	Safety DPR
100-80	Blue-Chip Players	<90	<77	<80
79-60	NFL starter quality at position	91-100	78-88	81-97
59-40	Average to slightly below average player	101-108	89-96	98-109
39-20	Underperformer	109-115	97-110	110-118
19-0	Red Flag	>115	>110	>118
Source: PFF, min. 20 targets

Most targeted Linebackers

The Cowboys knew they were thin at linebacker going into the 2025 season, so they brought in Kenneth Murray and Jack Sanborn in free agency, and later even traded for Logan Wilson in early November. Here’s how the entire linebacker room fared in pass defense.

Player	Targets	CMP	Yards	Burn rate	DPR
Kenneth Murray	48	35	345	73%	99.7
Logan Wilson	44	33	327	75%	118.3
Shemar James	37	35	332	95%	131.1
DeMarvion Overshown	18	17	156	94%	121.3
Marist Liufau	15	14	167	93%	135.3
Jack Sanborn	12	11	117	92%	107.3
Linebacker Average	174	145	1,444	83%	118.5

If you rank 31st overall in DPR, none of your position groups will impress anybody.

The Cowboys linebackers rank 29th overall. The league average DPR for linebackers is 107.3, and the two best linebacker rooms in Seattle (78.3) and Philly (84.6) run circles around the Cowboys linebackers.

And the table above does not inspire a lot of confidence for 2026. Murray, Wilson, and Sanborn are gone, for good reason, but they might better than anything the Cowboys had and have. A burn rate in the 90s is a playcalling invitation for opposing quarterbacks, “just target whoever is covered by a linebacker and you should be fine.“

Dee Winters was added to the room and brings a “yellow” 104.2 DPR to Dallas, and what third-round pick Jaishawn Barham brings to the room remains to be seen. There is some hope that DeMarvion Overshown, now fully healthy, could also be an upgrade. He was slightly better in 2024 with a 101.6 DPR, but his burn rate was also quite high at 91%.

Many fans have been clamoring for an additional signing at linebacker, and they are right, but it has to be a guy who can cover. Otherwise OC Christian Parker’s scheme will have to fix the linebacker performance by itself, and that’s a big ask.

But perhaps it is the right ask. If the Cowboys are going to play with Caleb Downs as a nickelback patrolling the middle of the field, that might take pressure off the linebackers and fix some of the issues up the middle.

Most targeted Cornerbacks

Instead of dominating 2025 with their pair of All Pro corners, a first-round free agent in Kaiir Elam, and a bunch of rookies to bring along slowly, the Cowboys found themselves with a cornerback room full of fantasy Walmart greeters who were only really there to so say hello as receivers passed them by.

Player	Targets	CMP	Yards	Burn rate	DPR
DaRon Bland	76	51	630	67%	109.0
Reddy Steward	52	45	410	87%	99.5
Kaiir Elam	41	26	330	63%	112.9
Shavon Revel	31	21	295	68%	119.7
Trikweze Bridges	28	16	250	57%	107.7
Trevon Diggs	20	16	286	80%	158.3
Caelen Carson	17	11	188	65%	102.1
Cornerback Average	268	188	2,412	70%	114.8

The DPR here is orange and red throughout, and again, if you rank 31st overall in DPR, your corners are not going to look good.

The Cowboys corners come in 29th overall, compared with a league-average DPR of 94.4. Top three teams: Houston (78.1), Kansas City (78.6), and Philly (79.6).

The Cowboys have already jettisoned Trevon Diggs and Kaiir Elam, and have added Cobie Durant (“green” 85.6 DPR and 59% burn rate) along with Derion Kendrick, who is now two years removed from an ACL. Outside of that, they’ll have to look at their own talent, their own scheme, and their own coaching to make a difference this year.

The one encouraging thing most of last year’s players bring with them is their burn rate. The NFL average is 63% and almost all returning guys have a burn rate in the 60s or lower.

While the overall DPR numbers are ugly, burn rate suggests the returning corners weren’t consistently getting beaten at the catch point. Many of the explosive plays came after the catch or from a handful of catastrophic breakdowns, problems that coaching and communication may be better positioned to fix than pure coverage ability.

Most targeted Safeties

When your last line of defense fails, there is no one left to save you, and a minor mistake or miscommunication instantly turns into a catastrophic touchdown.

Player	Targets	CMP	Yards	Burn rate	DPR
Donovan Wilson	37	29	315	78%	119.2
Malik Hooker	18	15	295	83%	155.8
Markquese Bell	17	14	174	82%	104.4
Juanyeh Thomas	3	3	27	100%	143.8
Safety Average	75	61	811	81%	134.6
…
Jalen Thompson	46	30	303	65%	98.4
P.J. Locke	12	7	44	58%	93.8

Last year’s safety room ranked dead last in the NFL, with a DPR almost 35 points above the NFL average of 100.4, and way off the top teams: Chargers (56.4), Saints (76.8), and Houston (77.2). At least Philly is not that far away (116.7, #25), and help is on the way for the Cowboys in the form of Jalen Thompson and P.J. Locke.

With Thompson and Locke on board, Caleb Downs can play closer to the box, allowing DC Christian Parker to better disguise his coverages, which in turn should result in fewer blown coverages and fewer explosive plays allowed.

What it all means

The numbers tell a remarkably consistent story. We saw in the previous post that the Cowboys’ pass rush did its job often enough to win. The coverage behind it didn’t.

Quarterbacks repeatedly found easy completions underneath, attacked linebackers in coverage, and exploited communication breakdowns over the middle before the pass rush could arrive. Pressure loses much of its value when offenses always have an easy answer.

The front office clearly recognized the problem. Dallas replaced two starting safeties, turned over much of the cornerback room, drafted Caleb Downs, and added more speed at linebacker. Whether those moves are enough remains to be seen, but they point toward the same conclusion the numbers do: improving this defense isn’t about finding another pass rusher.

It’s about making every pressure count.

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Why the Cowboys’ pass rush couldn’t save their pass defense

Stats by Position

Most targeted Linebackers

Most targeted Cornerbacks

Most targeted Safeties

What it all means

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