On Sunday afternoon, the Dallas Cowboys made their first major move since the immediately infamous Micah Parsons trade by extending cornerback DaRon Bland on a new $92 million contract. Bland remains one of the best cornerbacks in the league and has been a stalwart of the Cowboys' defensive backfield over the last few years.
One person who seems thrilled about the extension is Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer, who recently spoke about Bland's impact on the team shortly after the new extension was announced.
“He is a leader by example. I see him working with guys, the way he works, the way he practices, the way he runs to the ball, he is a leader by example,” said Schottenheimer, per Ali Jawad of DLLS Cowboys on X, formerly Twitter.
A big move for the Cowboys
Indeed, Bland has been showing his teammates how to get it done over the last few years. During the 2023 season, Bland set an NFL record with five interceptions returned for a touchdown, commonly referred to as “pick sixes.”
That year, the Cowboys had one of the elite defenses in the NFL throughout the year, before it all came crashing down in the Wild Card round that year with a blowout home loss.
Still, the majority of the headlines surrounding the Cowboys have been about Parsons, who is now a member of the Green Bay Packers after last week's trade that sent him up north.
A lot of the blame for that has been directed at team owner Jerry Jones, who has gone on the record admitting that generating headlines is more important to him than winning football games, and certainly followed through on that mindset with the trade of Parsons to the last team Dallas played in the NFL playoffs back in 2023.
The Cowboys still have a considerable amount of talent on their roster when healthy, and they'll be hoping that the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles underestimate them when the two divisional rivals kick things off for the 2025 NFL season on September 4. That game is slated for prime time from Philadelphia.
