FRISCO, Texas – Cowboys first-round pick Malachi Lawrence has signed his four-year, $20.22 million rookie deal with the Dallas Cowboys.
With Lawrence officially putting pen to paper, all seven of the Cowboys' 2026 draftees have been signed to their rookie contracts.
Back on May 1, the Cowboys signed first-round pick Caleb Downs, third-round pick Jaishawn Barham, fourth-round picks Drew Shelton, Devin Moore, LT Overton and seventh-round pick Anthony Smith along with their undrafted free agent class.
Now, the focus can shift completely back to the football field, where the Cowboys will continue their 2026 OTAs on June 8.
Through three practices up to this point, Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer is encouraged by Dallas' pass rush unit as a whole, and specifically discussed Lawrence on Thursday.
"Malachi Lawrence is picking it up really, really quickly, and we're very excited about that." Schottenheimer said.
For Schottenehimer, a team having a good pass rush usually comes from a strong overall unit, and not always just having one dominant rusher.
"I think some of the best pass rushing teams that I know we face don't have necessarily one guy. It's easier to shut one guy down," Schottenheimer said. "One elite guy, you can pay a lot of attention. It's better of when you're looking at Denver, and obviously [Nick] Bonitto put up big numbers, but they were getting six-plus sacks I think from seven or eight different guys or something crazy like that."
"I really do think it's more of the unit. And that's what were' excited about with the depth that we feel that we have."
Lawrence is the newest face in Dallas' pass rushing department, which also added former Packers EDGE Rashan Gary via trade earlier in the offseason and has last year's second-round pick Donovan Ezeiruaku heading into his second season.
