Sunday brings us the first Dallas Cowboys preseason game of 2024. After a long, drama-filled offseason, we finally get to see the players in action as they take on the Los Angeles Rams.

As is often the case in the preseason, most of the starters aren’t going to see the field for Dallas. They’ll instead send many of their younger players out there as they fight for a position on the 53-man roster.

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There will also be several young players trying to prove they can hold down a starting spot. That includes Tyler Guyton, who is fighting for the left tackle position and Cooper Beebe, who looks to unseat Brock Hoffman. There will be plenty of eyes on each of them but one rookie could stand out above them all in Preseason Week 1, Ryan Flournoy.

Ryan Flournoy looks to continue building upon impressive offseason

Rookie wideout Ryan Flournoy has been impressive throughout the offseason programs. The 6-foot-1, 200-pounder was selected in the sixth-round out of Southeast Missouri State.

He’s been so impressive throughout camp that he was drawing comparisons to Dez Bryant.

Obviously, the Cowboys don’t expect him to be the same caliber player as Bryant but they’re going to utilize him often against the Rams to see if he can continue to get the job done in a game setting. Don’t be surprised if he rises to the occasion and continues to make believers out of everyone.

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Start Your Engines: 7 players to watch in Sunday’s preseason opener

Make Or Break: 3 key matchups to watch in Cowboys vs. Rams preseason opener

Where It Started: Looking back at Dak Prescott’s phenomenal preseason debut in 2016

Fix It: Cowboys offense has one major concern to correct before Week 1

Camp Battles: 6 surprising notes from Cowboys first unofficial depth chart

Cowgirls: Meet Reece Allman: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader

Regular readers of this page know we are tough critics of Dallas City Hall.

There have been plenty of reasons for us to persistently raise concerns: policies we think hamper the city’s success, managerial failures that gummed up the city’s permitting department, an ever-rising cost of government, and ongoing decline in resident satisfaction with everything from their sense of safety to a belief that the city is heading in the wrong direction.

So let us take a moment here to say that there is a good reason for renewed hope in how City Hall is handling its business. It came in the form of interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year.

What we saw in both an executive overview and in an interview with Tolbert and her top staff was a disciplined budget focused on the right priorities for a city that leads a growing region.

Here are the highlights that stood out as indicators Tolbert is properly aligning her budget with residents’ desire that Dallas be safer and cleaner and that City Hall better manage its spending:

• A 3.1-cent tax rate reduction to 70.47 cents per $100 in valuation that would save the average homeowner more than $94 a year.
• A consolidation of several city departments and a meaningful reduction in the number of non-public safety positions.
• A serious commitment to meeting actuarial obligations in the city’s police and fire pension fund.
• An increase in public safety starting salaries to attract more recruits to our police force.
• A proposed $3 monthly “clean sweep” utility bill fee to answer resident concerns about homeless encampments and persistent messes around intersections and in public spaces.

Those are just a few bullets of a complex $5 billion total proposed budget, with $1.9 billion of that devoted to the general fund budget that pays for day-to-day operations.

Tolbert told us that she felt she had clear direction on where residents want her to go with this budget, and that was to focus on public safety and quality-of-life issues.

The general fund budget is set to grow by $65.1 million under Tolbert’s proposal. But let us offer some valuable context to that figure.

Under prior City Manager T.C. Broadnax, the general fund grew at a pace of more than $100 million each cycle. With each new budget came an unnecessary expansion of the city’s reach, and with it new jobs that grew the bureaucracy even as residents complained services were getting worse. We supported Broadnax’s most recent budget, but reluctantly and with every sort of caveat.

We are more enthusiastic about the direction Tolbert is taking the city. The growth she has added to the general fund is focused on new public safety positions, mainly in the police department. She’s backing that up with the proposed salary increase that we think can make Dallas more competitive in getting recruits.

Meanwhile, she is proposing cutting back on positions outside of public safety. Her budget includes an additional $78.6 million in public safety spending. That means there is a net $13.5 million reduction in all other general fund expenditures. That comes in part from targeting “ghost jobs,” positions that lard the budget but aren’t filled. But it also comes from reducing some headcount, a fiscally necessary move.

We also heard Tolbert describe a subtle but important shift in the approach to homelessness. Like many cities, Dallas has followed a very light enforcement regimen when it comes to encampments, loitering, panhandling, open-air drug use and other actions often (and sometimes unfairly) associated with homelessness. The city has instead adopted a humane “housing first” philosophy. It has proved ineffective, however, in addressing the massive growth in encampments and visible homelessness that have become a major concern for residents. Leaving people to live in desperate circumstances until an apartment is available is unintentionally cruel in itself.

Tolbert described an approach that acknowledges, in her words, that the city’s progress on getting people housed is “not enough.” Greater intervention is required, she said. We are eager to see what plans she has to back that up.

Meanwhile, her proposed $3 monthly fee to help address unsanitary conditions that have taken root all over the city sounds like something residents would gladly pay. The explosion in homelessness has created challenges that cities didn’t budget for. Underpasses, medians, vacant lots and other spaces have become debris fields that make living in Dallas less pleasant. Devoting funds to keeping the city cleaner would make Dallas more livable and lead to a greater feeling of safety. We support that.

That isn’t the only fee that needs attention here. Other than the tax rate, you can expect to pay City Hall more for every service from water to trash pickup. We want to grumble about these costs. Their annual increase is as certain as the rising sun.

But we also have to acknowledge a few things. Dallas is the biggest municipal water waster in the state. Why? The pipes are old and broken. Fixing them is massively expensive. Trash pickup has gotten pricier, especially as more frequent and stronger storms create enormous bulk trash costs that the city hasn’t had to bear historically.

Is Tolbert’s budget perfect? It is not. There are many areas that we could nitpick, and we are going to have more to say before all is said and done.

But the direction here is good and, importantly, different from what her predecessor offered. This is a budget that feels like it reflects what people in this city consistently say they want.

That means Tolbert has been listening. And that’s a huge step forward.

We welcome your thoughts in a letter to the editor. See the guidelines and submit your letter here. If you have problems with the form, you can submit via email at letters@dallasnews.com

While all of the current Dallas Mavericks players were eliminated in the quarterfinals, one former Mav made his way to the gold medal game before falling to Stephen Curry and Team USA.

Frank Ntilikina, who played on the Mavs from 2021-2023, was a starter for France in their attempt to win the gold on the home floor. He failed to score any points in a 0/3 showing, but he only played seven minutes while logging a rebound and assist. While normally acting as a defensive standout, France needed offensive production in this game to match USA’s firepower.

The USA would hold on to win 98-87, leaving Ntilikina and France with the silver medal, becoming the first team since the United States in 1996 to medal in men’s basketball while competing in their home country.

READ MORE: Mavericks’ Mark Cuban Has ‘Goal’ To Keep Team in Dallas With Upcoming Lease Expiration

After struggling for the last few Olympic games, Victor Wembanyama woke up this game for an efficient 26 points and 7 rebounds, giving a taste of what Mavericks fans will have to deal with as he competes in the same division as a member of the San Antonio Spurs. He led the game in scoring, followed closely by Curry’s 24 points for the USA and Guerschon Yabusele’s 20 points for France. Curry was dynamite for the United States, including a ridiculous final few minutes where he caught fire from three-point range.

Ntilikina spent five games with the Charlotte Hornets last season but signed with Partizan in Serbia to likely end his NBA career. He was drafted eighth overall in the 2017 NBA Draft by the New York Knicks, one pick before the Mavs selected Dennis Smith Jr. He only averaged 3.6 PPG in his two seasons in Dallas.

READ MORE: Dallas Mavericks’ Jason Kidd Drops Surprising Take on the GOAT Debate

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