Dallas, TX
Cowboys news: Dallas bringing in UFL linebacker Willie Harvey Jr. for a workout
The Cowboys will take a look at the UFL linebacker talent pool.
The #Cowboys will work out All-UFL LB Willie Harvey Jr. on Tuesday, per source.
Harvey — who appeared in four games with the #Browns from 2019-21 — led the UFL in tackles and all linebackers in tackles for loss, passes defended and forced fumbles.pic.twitter.com/curmLapnMx
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) June 10, 2024
Check out our writeup from last week suggesting the Cowboys take a look at Harvey Jr.
Lewis on Zimmer scheme: ‘It’s our job to perform’ – Patrik Walker, DallasCowboys.com
The Cowboys don’t have the deepest group of cornerbacks, but all of their expected starters are proven playmakers including veteran Jourdan Lewis.
It’s the resurgence in late 2023 that showed the Cowboys what Lewis was still capable of, but now he’ll have to adapt to yet another change at defensive coordinator. The hiring of Mike Zimmer following the departure of Dan Quinn marks the fourth coordinator change for Lewis in his eight-year career.
In other words, averaging a coordinator change every two seasons, he knows what it takes to embrace a new scheme and thrive as if he’s been in it for years.
“There is definitely going to be a learning curve whenever you play for a new coordinator,” he said. “But at the same time, we’re professionals. That’s our job to go out there and perform in any scheme that we’re in.”
That task effectively ramps up when the Cowboys depart for training camp in Oxnard on July 22, and there’s little time for the defense to find their land legs in Zimmer’s scheme.
One thing is for certain: Lewis is ready.
Cowboys safety Juanyeh Thomas called “a starter in the making” – Jess Haynie, Blogging The Boys
It will be very interesting to watch what Mike Zimmer makes of the Cowboys group of safeties.
Thomas’ ascension has been enough, and is apparently continuing in the Cowboys’ spring practices, that Patrik Walker of the team’s official website has him competing for a starting job in 2024. In the piece, Walker refers to Thomas as a “starter in the making” and even declares him “potentially being a full-time starter in 2024.” The article includes some glowing remarks from coaches Mike McCarthy and Al Harris as well.
That’s high praise, especially with a solid pair of veterans in Hooker and Wilson returning. Kearse wasn’t re-signed in free agency by the Cowboys and remains untouched by the rest of the NFL. But while Dallas did play all three safeties regularly in Dan Quinn’s scheme, the arrival of Mike Zimmer is expected to curtail the hybrid LB/S role that Kearse played in favor of more traditional linebackers. That would seem to leave Hooker and Wilson as the favorites to be the typical starting duo with Hooker at FS and Wilson in the SS role.
Though they’re far more familiar to us, neither veteran should be considered a lock to start. While their trio with Kearse was a fun story and all played well, none of them were stars for the Cowboys. Being adequate leaves plenty of room for improvement, and there seems to be a lot of momentum building behind Juanyeh Thomas as a potential upgrade to one of their positions.
Thomas has the size to play strong and the athleticism to play free, giving him two avenues to a starting role. And with both Hooker and Wilson getting older and more expensive, the Cowboys could jump at a chance to pivot to a younger, cheaper option even if he just maintains the level of play. If Thomas gives them a reason to think he could elevate one of those positions, either now or in the near future, that will only incentivize the team more.
Don’t balk at Thomas’ potential just because he was undrafted, either. Wilson was only a sixth-round pick himself in 2019, and just look at what DaRon Bland is doing for the Cowboys as a former fifth-rounder. The margin between Day 3 picks and undrafted guys can be really slim, and Thomas has as much right to NFL success as any of them.
‘Bill Belichick Told A Friend …’ Dallas Cowboys ‘Hot Seat Watch Goes NFL ‘Official’ – Mike Fisher, Athlon Sports
The Mike McCarthy on the hot seat talk will never end.
Earlier this spring, after the Dallas Cowboys chose to retain head coach Mike McCarthy for the final year of his contract, a bombshell report by ESPN revealed that former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is already zeroing in on his next job.
That would be McCarthy’s job.
As ESPN wrote it, Belichick “told a friend that he liked the idea of sticking it to the Krafts (Patriots ownership) by working for Jones.”
Could the all-powerful Belichick really work for the all-powerful Jones? If it’s true that Belichick is eyeing a 2025 move to The Star, he’s already answered that question for a doubting public.
From our perspective? We covered the Cowboys when Jimmy Johnson worked here and we covered the Cowboys when Bill Parcells worked here. So the idea that Jerry must be a “puppeteer’’ of a weak coach is historically proven to be untrue.
How much traction is this idea gaining? Enough that NFL.com is writing about it as if it’s going to happen. From Judy Batista: “This doesn’t even really seem like that bold a prediction. … With another early playoff exit in the offing, Jerry Jones does what many expected him to do this offseason: let Mike McCarthy go. McCarthy is coaching in the final year of his contract, so that won’t even be a surprise. Neither will Jones hiring Bill Belichick. …’’
Panic Meter for Potential 2024 NFL Training Camp Holdouts – Maurice Moton, Bleacher Report
It still feels like it is hardly time to panic when it comes to the Cowboys keeping CeeDee Lamb around.
CeeDee Lamb, WR, Dallas Cowboys
Like Ja’Marr Chase, CeeDee Lamb’s eyes probably lit up when he saw reports about wideout Justin Jefferson’s market-setting extension.
According to NFL insider Josina Anderson, Jefferson’s contract will speed up negotiations between the Dallas Cowboys and Lamb’s camp.
The 25-year-old has the production and accolades to command a lucrative pay raise. He’s hauled in 395 passes for 5,145 yards and 32 touchdowns in 66 games. The fifth-year pro has earned three Pro Bowl nods and is coming off an All-Pro season in which he led the league in catches (135).
With Micah Parsons willing to wait on his extension and Dak Prescott stating that he’s comfortable betting on himself in a contract year, the Cowboys can focus on Lamb’s new deal.
Lamb skipped mandatory minicamp, which makes him subject to fines, but Dallas can waive those financial penalties because he’s still on a rookie contract.
Soon, Lamb will be one of the league’s highest-paid receivers.
Panic Meter: 1
Reason for optimism for all 32 NFL teams in 2024 – Dalton Wasserman, Pro Football Focus
Can the Cowboys still be trusted to keep their winning ways of the regular season alive in 2024?
They are talented at all the right spots and consistently win (in the regular season, at least)
For as much criticism as the Dallas Cowboys get, they have won 12 games in three straight regular seasons and are loaded with talent at premium positions. They posted top-five offensive and defensive grades last season, joining San Francisco and Baltimore as the only teams to do so.
Dak Prescott finished third in passing grade. CeeDee Lamb finished fourth in receiving grade. Micah Parsons and Demarcus Lawrence were dominant off the edge, per usual, and the team returns arguably the best pair of cornerbacks in the NFL in DaRon Bland and Trevon Diggs. The Cowboys may lack depth, but they certainly don’t lack the high-end talent needed to win games.
Cowboys TE Jake Ferguson: How he plans to take the next step after a Pro Bowl season – Jon Machota, The Athletic
Ferguson wants to improve in all aspects of his game, but being a better blocker in the running game tops his list, and he provides a quote that sure endear him to Cowboys fans everywhere.
“Half the run game is training and getting stronger,” [Ferguson] said, “and then the other half is just being pissed off and trying to kill somebody.”
“Consistency in his passion and energy,” Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy said of what has impressed him the most about Ferguson. “But really, just his growth as a football player. We talked a little bit about his weight; I think he’s done an outstanding job in the strength and conditioning phase of it. He’s having a great offseason. Very, very comfortable with the little things we’ve asked him to do on top of what he did last year.”
The tight end has been a big part of the passing game throughout Dak Prescott’s career. From Witten to Dalton Schultz to Ferguson last year, the Cowboys’ quarterback has had a strong connection with one of his tight ends. The 2024 season should be no different.
“Obviously, you see the jump he made from Year 1 to Year 2,” Prescott said of Ferguson, “and he’s improved his intensity in his preparation just in this offseason, the way that he’s treated his body, the way that he’s been communicating with me throughout the offseason, whether it’s catching and throwing. He’s a big-time playmaker for this team, for this offense. As long as he continues to get better, the sky’s the limit for his potential and what he can do for this team.”
Plainclothes federal agents took at least three individuals into custody outside a Dallas immigration courtroom Friday.
It’s part of a stepped-up enforcement effort from the Department of Justice to remove undocumented individuals more quickly.
NBC-5 reporters witnessed one individual detained outside a courtroom in the Earle Cabell Federal Building in downtown Dallas, and two others told a Telemundo 39 reporter that their relatives were detained as well.
Another 15 individuals were seen taken into custody over a two-day period last week, according to our content partners at The Dallas Morning News.
Guadalupe Ontiveros says her nephew, Evin Villanueva Herrera, 18, arrived at the federal courthouse Friday for a hearing in his immigration case.
But instead of receiving a next court date, an attorney withthe Department of Homeland Security filed a motion to dismiss.
Ontiveros said she then watched plainclothes agents take her nephew, who arrived in the U.S. from Honduras, into custody moments after leaving the courtroom.
“I convinced him to come (to court) because it was the right thing to do, but the judge granted him an appeal, and as soon as we walked out the court doors, they took him,” Ontiveros said.
It’s a legal process called expedited removal, allowing the federal government to remove undocumented individuals who have arrived in the U.S. in the last two years and don’t have an active asylum claim.
The practice, once confined to a geographic radius near the border, now applies across the U.S., according to Eric Cedillo.
“They (DOJ) have the legal ability to do what they’re doing,” Cedillo said
The Dallas-based immigration attorney who did not have any connection to the cases at the federal building Friday, said while individuals have thirty days to appeal, they must do so in custody and by mail.
He added that the stepped-up enforcement, seen in several cities across the US, has led to growing concern for those who arrived in the U.S. within the last two years, even among individuals who filed legitimate asylum claims within a year of arrival.
“It is having that effect of instilling fear in those individuals who are asking those questions of what can I do to protect myself,” Cedillo said.
A request for comment from Immigration and Customs Enforcement was not immediately returned Friday.
Park advocates notched a victory before the Dallas City Council this week; an industrial developer took a hit; and I’m trying to figure out why I, a tree-hugger from way back, am not smiling.
The loser of the day was businessman and political consultant Brandon Johnson, on the short end of a narrow vote he needed to build a concrete batch plant in a heavily industrial zone near Walnut Hill Lane and Interstate 35E in northwest Dallas. The winners were advocates for nearby MoneyGram Soccer Park, 120 acres containing 19 soccer fields and a pavilion built with city money 10 years ago.
Not actually having gone to med school, I was nevertheless persuaded by testimony that it’s bad for kids to engage in vigorous athletic activity in a place where they are likely to suck in large amounts of what scientists call inhalable particulate matter — what I would call concrete dust.
So, the vote was no to particulates, yes to kids. So why no smile?
Start with this: The place the city chose for this park 10 years ago was already surrounded by heavy industry. In more recent overarching land-use policy decisions, the city has reaffirmed that this zone, about midway between downtown Dallas and the northwest city limits, is where industry is supposed to go. So putting a 120-acre athletic park smack in the middle of it 10 years ago was a monumentally foolish thing to do, equivalent to installing slides, swings and a merry-go-round in the median of a downtown freeway.
Some advocates for the park found sympathy from some council members this week when they accused the surrounding industrial users of environmental racism. They even suggested the solution must be to run off the industrial users, who possess long-range and even permanent legal permission to be where they are. This would be the equivalent of protecting the kids on the merry-go-round by tearing down the freeway.
In spite of my huggerdom, I always balk and even recoil when I hear a certain narrative stubbornly repeated around town in which industry is painted as a bad thing, an enemy of the people. I’ve lived here more than half of a very long life, but I’m a kid from the Great Lakes region at a time when it was the steaming, bustling industrial hub of the western world. Yeah, a while back.
I grew up among hardworking people who gathered in from around the world to work in those industries. With their good wages they bought new brick houses, sent kids to college and retired with great health care and, believe me, they did not do it by riding merry-go-rounds.
Environmental racism is real, there and here. This city has been witness to despicable cases of environmental racism, as in West Dallas, where noxious polluters were jammed in cheek-by-jowl with poor and mainly minority neighborhoods. Permanent damage was done to generations of children.
That’s a true and terrible story, a sin that cannot be plowed under with the lead-contaminated soil left behind by polluters like the infamous RSR lead smelter, closed in 1984 only after a heroic battle led by citizen activist Mattie Nash.
So how on this good earth could this city government, whose sole ultimate purpose is to protect us, have placed 19 soccer fields in the middle of a legally defined industrial area?
I assume MoneyGram paid good money for those naming rights, but if the park is to stay where it is, then another name would better suit the tradition it represents. In its present location, the park should be renamed RSR Smelter Park.
At the risk of being drummed out of hugger ranks forever, I can’t help pointing out another aspect of this vote: the powerful effect it will have on future location and investment decisions by industry. This is how factories wind up in Mexico.
We ought to be able to agree on this much. We never want kids to breathe in inhalable particulate matter if we can help it. But if we can resolve that problem, then industry is a good thing, not bad.
Industry provides employment, which is even more important than soccer. Employment puts food on the table. No food on the table, no soccer. And industry provides massive support to the tax base. Oh, that — the money to pay for $31 million soccer parks.
Hugger be damned, I just don’t believe the city council did the right thing this week. The right thing would have been for the city to admit its mistake 10 years ago and sell the park to industry, kind of like taking the merry-go-round out of the freeway. Put the money toward building a new soccer park somewhere safer. And name it Mattie Nash Soccer Park.
But did I actually say, “admit its mistake?” Yes, well. There you have it.
Jim Schutze is a longtime Dallas journalist and author of the recent novel “Pontiac.”
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The remains of an infant from Dallas were found in Louisiana earlier this week, according to police.
The Shreveport Police Department said officers responded to a call around 5:30 a.m. Tuesday in reference to a body that was found at an Alsco Uniforms building.
Alsco employees told police they initially thought they found a doll wrapped in linens before they realized it was a small child.
According to police, the remains belonged to an infant who was stillborn in Dallas on May 3. The child’s funeral service was held at Golden Gate Funeral Home & Crematory in Dallas on May 17 and was scheduled for cremation.
Police said that the infant’s remains were mistakenly transported along with soiled linens to the Alsco Uniforms facility in Shreveport, about 190 miles east of Dallas.
“This is a deeply distressing situation,” said Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith. “Our thoughts are with the family of the child as this investigation unfolds.”
Police said no foul play is suspected and the investigation is ongoing.
The Texas Funeral Service Commission is also investigating.
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