One of those football adages that has always stuck with me came from a member of an NFL team’s front office circa 2010: “Never let desperation be confused with a plan.” It came at a time when his team was signing anyone and everyone at defensive back to fill an injury void, and he told me this anonymously because he disagreed with the approach of throwing money at free agents, rather than letting rookies get their reps in and take lumps as a result.
At first glance the decision by the Dallas Cowboys to sign Von Miller seems like desperation. The team is still reeling from the need to find pass-rush help in the wake of trading away Micah Parsons, while coming to the realization that Rashan Gary and Donovan Ezeiruaku really aren’t the marquee talents you want to get after opposing quarterbacks. Miller is 37-years-old, he’s a journeyman, and the Cowboys are his fourth team in the last five seasons.
Miller remains one of the most impactful pass rushers in the NFL. The future Hall of Fame lock has been reduced to just having one trick in his bag — but that’s all the Cowboys need at this point.
It’s completely understandable if you didn’t watch the Commanders play last season. Heck, even die-hard Commanders fans would forgive you for skipping over their debacle of a 2025 campaign. What we saw out of Von Miller in Washington was punctuated brilliance. Dan Quinn and the coaching staff were well aware of what Miller can and can’t do on the field at this point in his career, so he was used predominantly as a 3rd-down pass rusher, or an additional linebacker in some gadget sets. This concept worked extremely well, as Miller finished the 2025 season with 10 sacks and 36 total pressures on just 289 pass rush snaps.
This pressure rate of 12.4% is prolific compared with the pass rushers he joins now. Rashan Gary’s pressure rate was 13% — but Ezeiruaku’s was considerably worse at just 9%. This means that there’s a natural advantage on third-down pass-rushing situations to swap out Ezeiruaku for Miller, bolstering the attack as a result. This becomes even more intriguing with the addition of Caleb Downs, whom Dallas selected in the draft. There’s a gravity which comes from throwing Miller on the field which can’t be avoided, even as he gets older — meaning he needs to be accounted for on third down situations. While he might not command a true double, there will need to be a chip block thrown his way as well, because this is still Von Miller we’re talking about.
That means the Cowboys can become more creative with how they use Downs as a blitzer off the corner. We already know Dallas is using Downs in a variety of ways, leveraging his positional flexibility to throw him in numerous sets. If you couple that potential for disruption with an overarching need to watch for Von Miller, it creates a level of chaos the Cowboys are hoping to leverage.
In short: Dallas didn’t just need a pass rusher; they needed a very specific kind of pass rusher who could both generate the pressure they lacked while also having the gravitas to attract attention. Sure, this move might appear to have come about from desperation — but there’s actually a plan behind it, and a dang good one.