Our stock report following Sunday’s Cowboys loss is out and DeMarvion Overshown is one of the bright spots across this season as a whole.
The Dallas Cowboys were humiliated yet again on Sunday. While the opponents were in name and title the Philadelphia Eagles, the true culprit was really who it has been for a long time now – themselves.
Consider that we are passing the midpoint of November this week and that the Cowboys have yet to even win a game at home this season. Consider beyond that how the Cowboy have not scored a touchdown in their own building since September 22nd. Seriously.
We have reached a dark place on this Cowboys season, and while there are many things that are responsible for that, there are also some flickering lights that will hopefully be pieces of a better future.
This is our stock report following Sunday’s loss with a few ups and mostly downs.
Stock Up: DeMarvion Overshown
When it is all said and mercifully done, this season will probably be remembered as the one where DeMarvion Overshown fully evolved into the next great Dallas Cowboys linebacker.
Overshown was fully unleashed in this game because of the presence of Micah Parsons (more on him in a moment) and seems to move at a different speed than anyone else.
OVERSHOWN SACK
(via @dallascowboys) pic.twitter.com/xXYTHPGaEP
— Blogging The Boys (@BloggingTheBoys) November 10, 2024
Overshown is a star and he was partly unlocked to a different degree because of Parsons. Aside from Overshown’s own insane athleticism, the takeaway from the front office should be that surrounding good players with other good ones is a rising tide that lifts all boats. Going at this and expecting him to carry things in 2025 and beyond would be repeating the same mistakes.
Stock Up: Micah Parsons
Welcome back. My goodness.
MICAH!!!!!!!!
(via @dallascowboys) pic.twitter.com/KRWLBMDG9O
— Blogging The Boys (@BloggingTheBoys) November 10, 2024
It is unreal how Parsons can impact a game just by lining up in it. He was an absolute wrecking ball on Sunday and for a little while had some people thinking that the Cowboys might be able to actually pull this thing off.
I’ll repeat the necessary takeaway from Overshown, give Parsons all of the help that can possibly be found. When there are this many sharks in the water the results have the potential to be incredible.
Oh yea, pay Micah, too.
Stock Up: Trevon Diggs
It has been a bit of a tough season back for Trevon Diggs, but he showed us on Sunday that he still has the potential to be a superstar.
This interception was a work of art.
TREVON DIGGS INT
(via @NFL) pic.twitter.com/C7I9o1jiBs
— Blogging The Boys (@BloggingTheBoys) November 10, 2024
It has been said many times that Diggs played wide receiver and we have seen that his ball-tracking skills are among the best in the NFL. Couple that with the necessary speed and agility to cut passes off and you occasionally have one of these.
Stock Down: Ezekiel Elliott
There are no nice ways to put it anymore. This is an unmitigated disaster. In his first game since returning from having national headlines surround him being inactive (think about how silly that is), Ezekiel Elliott was turned to by the Cowboys in the redzone after Rico Dowdle had been doing a great job.
Since everything is destined to blow up in Dallas’ face this season, of course Zeke fumbled.
As if that were not bad enough, the Cowboys were able to miraculously get the ball back right away thanks to Micah Parsons. They literally took over on the same spot on the field in which Elliott fumbled, the Philadelphia six-yard line, and handed the ball off to Zeke! On the first play! The literal first one after the fumble!
The man calling the game for CBS once famously said within the Cowboys’ team facility, potentially with a tour happening nearby, that football was a meritocracy. This is certainly not the case right now as the Cowboys are continuing to give Elliott carries despite overwhelming evidence that doing so is a bad idea.
Oh and the very next play CeeDee Lamb lost a would-be touchdown in the sun… because of course.
Stock Down: Cooper Rush
This is a tough thing because anyone who was expecting something serious from Cooper Rush was doing so against all odds. We noted many times throughout the week that circumstances involving his start were very different for the Cowboys than they were in 2022 when he was called upon for five games.
Consider that Rush did not complete a single pass beyond 10 yards down the field in this game. He was 0-for-6 on such attempts. It was, as predicted to be, quite bad.
Stock Down: Caelen Carson
It is never a good thing when you become someone who the other team is picking on and that seemed to happen in this game for young Caelen Carson.
In many ways the situation exemplifies part of what is so wrong with this team. Caelen Carson should not be expected to completely lock down A.J. Brown or DeVonta Smith as he is learning how to play the NFL game. Relying on a rookie to do something so improbable is a fool’s errand. That particular mistake is not on Carson.
Stock Down: Mazi Smith
Like with Ezekiel Elliott, we are way, way past the point of being able to offer even constructive criticism at this point in time. Smith’s second season is not yet complete and jumping to a conclusion at this point feels dramatic, but there is so much to suggest that he cannot be a proper player for this team. Smith is a relative non-factor at stopping the run and generating pressure. It is a tough scene.
Stock Down: Donovan Wilson
Once upon a time Donovan Wilson’s ability to run downhill and hit people was working out to the tune of great success almost play in and play out. For whatever reason, Mike Zimmer does not seem to have the same ability to work with him as Dan Quinn did.
Whatever the case or however we got here, Wilson is an extreme liability. His cover skills have been lacking all season and he is reading things so poorly that he is falling behind and allowing for big gains.
Stock Down: Mike McCarthy
I’ve said all along that I really feel for Mike McCarthy on a human level. He was clearly set up behind the eight ball which has impacted the way that all of this has gone, but he is hardly doing himself any favors.
The Cowboys won the toss and he chose to receive the ball again to start things off, just one week after deferring in identical circumstances. This is a very small example, but it is representative of how McCarthy is just chasing his tail right now and not committed to anything. We are seeing that ripple out into every decision that he makes.
Maybe you believe that he is limited in decision-making because of calls coming from inside of the house. If true, then obviously he can only do so much with one arm tied behind his back, so to speak.
But we have seen teams look like ‘not disasters’ when they have been in situations of this level of peril across the NFL, heck, we have seen it from McCarthy himself way back in 2020. Many Cowboys fans respected how he, unlike his predecessor, was able to make lemonade out of a bleak set of circumstances. That is not the case here. Clearly.
Stock Down: Jerry Jones
The theme of this post has been stating the obvious for so many people and such is the case with the owner, president and general manager.
Remember that the only other people who the Cowboys seriously considered, according to reports, for defensive coordinator outside of Mike Zimmer (who got the job, and had not been in the NFL for a few years, and is a Jones family friend) were Ron Rivera and Rex Ryan.
Remember that the Cowboys ignored signing anybody at all in free agency and that they were, yet again, the last player to get on the board with an external free agent. Recall specifically that the first one they signed, Eric Kendricks, literally agreed to terms with a different team (the San Francisco 49ers) beforehand.
Remember that the team talked up bringing Ezekiel Elliott back before the NFL Draft and did the Monday morning following it at the break of dawn. This is significant as it was the first day that signing Elliott would not impact the team’s compensatory formula. An argument can be made that the day they signed Zeke back to the team was the first day that they literally could after they released him way back in the offseason of 2023.
Remember that on Sunday evening the man in question yet again moved the goalposts on issues relating to the sun impacting players on his team – that we are even having to talk about this is so silly – despite CeeDee Lamb literally claiming that it bothers him and he would prefer curtains to be up.
This whole situation is a mess and was made so by one person ultimately. As has been the case for a long, long time now.