NBC Sports’ Jason Garrett: What to Expect from Revamped Cowboys This Season

Jason Garrett knows the Dallas Cowboys as well as anyone, and when Rich laid out the case for optimism in Dallas, the former head coach mostly agreed, with one honest reservation that still sits at the center of the roster.

Rich made his pitch first. He likes the changes on defense, likes that the offense returns intact, likes that Dak Prescott appears to be playing with a chip, and likes what he has seen from head coach Brian Schottenheimer, who many assumed Jerry Jones could steamroll and who has instead "proven he's his own man." Garrett's response was warm. "There's so many positive things about it," he said.

But he would not skip past the elephant in the room. Last year was challenging for a lot of reasons, and Garrett kept coming back to "the cloud of Micah Parsons hanging over that team for so long." He does not think that situation gave the defense a chance to become what it wanted to be, and he was blunt about the trade that eventually sent Parsons out. "It's a real discussion as to whether or not they should have let that guy out of the building."

The reasoning was pure football philosophy. Garrett laid out the standard blueprint for building a championship team: get the quarterback first, then find the elite pass rusher, the player who affects the quarterback. "When you have one in the building who's so disruptive like Micah was, it's hard for me to think that your team's getting better by letting him go." Still, he credited Dallas for the return, two first-round picks and Kenny Clark, and for building around that haul.

On defense, Garrett sees genuine progress. He praised the additions of Quinnen Williams and Kenny Clark and this year's draft, arguing the Cowboys "have solidified the defense more than it's been in the last few years." That side of the ball, he expects, will simply be better.

Garrett also insisted on an objective look at what actually happened last season. Dallas won seven of 17 games, and many of those wins came against teams that were not very good. He rattled off a schedule of soft spots, wins over the Commanders twice, the Giants, the Jets, the Raiders, and a Chiefs team in a down year. The one signature victory was Philadelphia. On the other side of the ledger were losses to Arizona and a handful of defeats by double digits.

That is why, for Garrett, the season starts with a mindset rather than a scheme. "It starts with competing the right way," he said, calling it the mantra around the building right now, and he believes Prescott will live it out because "he's a special, special guy."

The talent, Garrett made clear, is there to reward that approach. He pointed to real firepower on offense, three first-round picks along the offensive line, an elite quarterback, "a runner who's revitalized his career," and excellent receivers on the outside. His prescription is simple and hard at once. Get off to a good start, get going, and above all compete on Sundays for three hours at a time. "That's going to be the biggest thing I'm looking for," he said.