Sometimes best to get the scoop on players from someone who has been ‘on the scene’ so to speak – and so, not long after both Dorance Armstrong and Tyler Biadasz agreed to follow Dan Quinn from Dallas to DC, Grant Paulsen welcomed in Dallas Morning News beat writer Calvin Watkins.
Starting on the defensive side, where Armstrong played under then-DC Quinn and now-Commanders DC Joe Whitt Jr., Washington is getting ‘a pretty good pass rusher’ despite him playing a little less than half of Dallas’ snaps last season.
“Don't get caught up in the 42 percent snap count percentage; Quinn rotated his defensive linemen, and the only guy that played a whole lot was Micah Parsons,” Watkins said. “He uses a lot of different guys on the edge, and I would expect that snap count might increase a little bit, maybe to 60 percent, but he was a pretty effective player. He hasn’t (been a three-down player) but I assume he’s gonna be second and third down guy; unless you’re a star rusher, no one plays all three there, but he's good against the run, a lot better than I think people give him credit for.”
And as for Biadasz, who has been as durable as they come in four seasons in Big D, the Cowboys weren’t expected to re-sign him, but he’s still a coup for the Commanders.
“He's a pretty good center, a very intelligent center who made all the line calls, and that kind of thing is what you want,” Watkins said. “He’s had some ankle issues over the last couple of years that he's been able to overcome, but he's a really good center. He's not this massive human being that you would like to see on your offensive line, but he's more than serviceable for what Quinn is trying to do.”
That said, Armstrong is the bigger loss in Big D, to Watkins.
“You can find a lot of center/guards in the draft, but Armstrong is a good fit, and you are really gonna like him in DC,” Watkins said. “6He's a good kid in the locker room, so we won't see too many problems from him, and you can never have enough pass rushers.”
Watkins also weighed in on what the notion of Quinn and Whitt coming to DC weakening Dallas, saying it’s more the latter than the former, really:
“The Cowboys were expecting to lose Dan Quinn at some point, even last year when Jerry Jones asked him to get out of the coaching cycle and stay one more year to try to win a title together,” Watkins said. “Whitt, there was some thought that Mike McCarthy wanted him to stay in Dallas to become the defensive coordinator, and that probably would have been the better move, but Jerry Jones likes his defensive coordinators to be either former head coaches or guys who have done the job before. Whitt hasn’t other than when DQ had COVID, but he’s more than capable calling defensive signals.”