FRISCO, Texas — Ah, culture. With the 2026 NFL Draft less than two weeks away, the rubber is beginning to meet the road for a Dallas Cowboys' team looking to finish rebuilding their defense. That means finalizing their draft board that could have around 16-20 first-round grades, owners of the 12th- and 20th-overall pick on Day 1.
The front office has made no bones whatsoever about the possibility of trading up (or maybe even down) in the first round, depending on how things are flowing in real-time in Pittsburgh — owner and general manager Jerry Jones himself stating the Cowboys are “absolutely” open to those possibilities.
And while they work to determine who deserves to get the call with their first-round picks, what's crystal-clear is they better be able and ready to make an instant impact in Dallas, and that includes in the locker room.
If they're not culture-changing players, they won't get the call.
"Yeah, I think it all factors in, at the end of the day," executive vice president and director of player personnel Stephen Jones told 105.3 FM the Fan. "Certainly, we're trying to create an identity and a culture of being all for this football team."
Jones rightfully wasn't interested in sugarcoating the team's defensive performance in 2025, in what amounted to the worst production in the history of the franchise on that side of the ball as Matt Eberflus struggled to get any buy-in or positive continuity of play from his players.
"We feel like we lacked that last year, on defense, in particular," he explained. "We feel like we had an identity and culture that we needed and that the players were buying into, or playing with an edge. That's the goal and, ultimately, the goal is to have a culture and an identity for the entire football team that Schotty is trying to develop in terms of the kind of men that we bring in here to compete day in, day out.
"And, when they're working out, that they're being a positive influence on what we're ultimately trying to be as an organization and as a football team."
With the hopes of repairing the culture issue within the defensive coaching staff, Eberflus was given his walking papers to make room for the hiring of Christian Parker as coordinator, ushering in a new, youthful and charged era that includes a revamped staff full of assistants and position coaches designed to both get players bought in fully, and to modernize the play-calling and in-game adaptations to try and match serve with head coach Brian Schottenheimer's league-leading offense.
And while it can't and won't all be placed squarely on the shoulders of incoming rookies, from the player aspect, the incoming rookies better know when Schottenheimer says "the standard is the standard, he and the Cowboys mean it wholeheartedly.
