Cowboys’ DaRon Bland eyes DPOY with 2023 reminiscent of Stephon Gilmore, Charles Woodson’s award-winning years

FRISCO, Texas — The NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year award has been in the vise-like grip of defensive linemen and edge rushers in each of the last three seasons with Los Angeles Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald (2020), Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker T.J. Watt (2021) and San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa (2022) taking home the hardware. 

In line with that trend, Dallas Cowboys edge rusher Micah Parsons, whose 62 quarterback pressures that are one back of Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby’s 63 while helping lead a top-five scoring defense (17.5 points per game allowed, fifth fewest in NFL), have resulted in him currently having the second-best odds (+200) to win DPOY honors, according to Caesars Sportsbook. 

However, Parsons is campaigning for a different Dallas player to take home the hardware in 2023: second-year, fifth-round pick cornerback DaRon Bland, who switched from the inside, nickel cornerback position in 2022 to the outside cornerback position in 2023 after Pro Bowler Trevon Diggs went down with a torn ACL in Week 3. 

Bland tied the NFL single-season record for interception return touchdowns with his fourth of 2023 on Sunday in a 33-10 Week 11 road victory at the Carolina Panthers, and he leads the NFL passer rating against (15.9) while co-leading the league in interceptions. His latest pick-six involved undercutting an out-breaking route, an ability that put Bland on the Cowboys’ radar before the 2022 draft, tumbling to the ground, somersaulting to his feet and sprinting to the end zone to complete the 30-yard return touchdown. 

“I would say so, yeah,” Bland said postgame Sunday when asked if this was his best pick-six yet. “Having to actually run the ball, make some moves and get up like that, you don’t [usually] get a return like that. … He kind of had a step on me at first, so I had to catch up. Once I caught up, I turned, saw the ball and said, ‘Yes. I have to go get this one.’ I only had about three targets, so I had to make the most of my opportunities.”   

Bland now co-leads the NFL in interceptions (six) while having exclusive bragging rights to being atop the league in interception return scores (four) and passer rating against as the primary defender in coverage (15.9). 

“Special,” Parsons said postgame Sunday when asked about Bland’s most recent pick-six. “When we seen that from one player who is out this year [Trevon Diggs] who used to do stuff like that, and seeing him [Bland] come into his own is truly special. Remarkable. He is having a Defensive Player of the Year-type year. He should be a lock for All-Pro. It shouldn’t be a question for the accolades he should be picking up. He’s on a remarkable, unbelievable run right now. Since I’ve been here, I’ve only seen one other guy [Diggs] do that. It will be fun to see how he finishes this year.”  

Bland in 2023 season

* Ranks among 228 players who have been targeted at least 20 times in 2023

** Tied for NFL single-season record

The Cowboys’ Parsons-powered pass rush leads the league with a 47.4% quarterback pressure rate, setting the table for Bland to pounce. 

“It all works together,” Parsons said of the pass rush and the secondary. “That’s the conversations you guys asked about earlier in the week. ‘The ball is coming out early, you’re going to have a chance to jump [routes]. We’re [the pass-rush unit] running pretty fast. I think we have to key on the snap and things like that.’ There are opportunities and DB took his opportunity and made a play. That’s the feedback. When we know we are getting after a team and a quarterback is kind of scared, he might be getting the ball off in one second in the second half. Everything is flats, out routes and things like that. I’m like ‘yo, take a shot.’ You have an opportunity there, and he made the most of his opportunity.”

Rarefied air 

The big picture opportunity for Bland, whose +6000 DPOY odds are the ninth best in the NFL at the moment, possesses is the chance to become the first defensive back since 2019 then-New England Patriots and current Dallas Cowboys cornerback Stephon Gilmore to take home the coveted honor. Gilmore joined the Cowboys this offseason in a trade with the Indianapolis Colts, and he thinks it’s a requirement for Bland to be in the conversation to be the 2023 NFL Defensive Player of the Year. 

“He’s tied the record for the most pick-sixes, so he’s having a great year,” Gilmore said of Bland on Monday. “I think they always try to give it to the defensive ends, but anytime you have a corner that’s playing like he is right now and like I did in ’19, you have to put him in the category.”

When comparing Bland’s 10-game resume to Gilmore’s 2019 full-season resume, it’s clear a comparison is more than fair. Bland has already matched Gilmore’s co-league-leading six interceptions from 2019 in only 10 games while currently averaging a lower completion percentage allowed and a lower passer rating allowed. 

DaRon Bland vs. Stephon Gilmore’s 2019 DPOY season

* Won 2019 NFL Defensive Player of the Year (last defensive back to win award)

** Leads or co-leads NFL

*** Tied NFL single-season record

Gilmore revealed three qualifiers for a defensive back to win DPOY: make plays (mostly interceptions), turn interceptions into touchdowns and have a strong defense (his Patriots led the league in scoring defense in 2019, allowing 14.1 points per game). Bland has already knocked out the first two items on Gilmore’s checklist with ease, and the Dallas defense is only allowing 3.4 more points per game (17.5) than the 12-4 Patriots unit from 2019. 

“I think when I did it I think I ran two back that year and followed around the best guy every week,” Gilmore said. “We had a great defense, just like we have a great defense here. He’s doing all that, and he’s making the plays. He definitely has to be in that category because tying the [single-season pick-six] record, we’ve been playing football for a long time, so to be able to do that is tough.”  

Bland earning that kind of respect from a player in Gilmore, who may one day end up in Canton, Ohio at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, is impressive. Having similarities drawn between a second-year player (Bland) and a current Hall of Famer in retired Raiders and Packers defensive back Charles Woodson is even more noteworthy. In the words of Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy, Woodson’s head coach for his entire, seven-season Green Bay tenure from 2006-2012, — including his 2009 NFL Defensive Player of the Year campaign — he sees a handful of traits the two share in addition to a couple key figures from the 2009 Packers’ secondary. 

Woodson co-led the league in interceptions (nine) and pick-sixes (three) that year, something Bland is doing now, while playing opposite Pro Bowl cornerback Al Harris, Dallas’ current defensive backs coach, and under cornerbacks coach Joe Whitt Jr., now the Cowboys secondary/defensive passing game coordinator.

“One thing with Charles was Joe Whitt Jr. coached both guys, and obviously Al Harris and Joe and Charles were all together,” McCarthy said Monday. “There are some cool similarities. One of the things Joe was telling me before Friday’s practice that started off in Green Bay was ‘Hey, how many [route] concepts do you have? How many things are you really dialed into going into the game?’ Joe felt that there was two they could really jump on as far as the crossing routes [underneath routes] and so forth. It’s something where those guys play at a little different level. It’s the film study, the instincts, the awareness. Charles was obviously a complete player, but a lot like DB, just the ball skills and more importantly when they got the ball in their hands, they were [and are] dynamic to put it in the end zone.”

This season, Bland’s “receiving touchdowns” total, aka interception return touchdowns, is just as dynamic as the following Pro Bowl offensive players: Raiders wide receiver Davante Adams, Giants running back Saquon Barkley and Titans wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins. He is finding the end zone so frequently that Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott said Sunday after the win over the Panthers that he now considers him a member of their offense and that Bland is doing “a hell of a job.” Only 2022 Second-Team All-Pro wideout CeeDee Lamb, five receiving touchdowns in 2023, has more passing-game scores on the Cowboys than Bland. 

Dallas’ next matchup in Week 12, a home game against the Washington Commanders, is ripe for Bland to take sole possession of the NFL’s single-season pick-sixes record. Commanders quarterback Sam Howell leads the NFL in pass attempts (442), interceptions thrown (12) and sacks taken (51). Mixing a passer like that with Parsons and the Cowboys pass-rush creates a situation ripe for Bland to haul in interception return touchdown No. 5 on Thanksgiving Day this Thursday. That record has been on his mind since the second he entered the end zone on Sunday. 

“When you touch the end zone, you’re like, ‘Wow, I just did it,’” Bland said. “I tied the record, but now my mindset is that I have to go break it. I have some more [pick-sixes] in there. 

If Howell and the Commanders opt to avoid throwing to Bland at all costs, the 2019 NFL Defensive Player of the Year Stephon Gilmore will be lurking on the other side of the field. 

“I’ll be ready if they do that,” Gilmore said when asked about teams potentially throwing at him more with the way Bland is playing. “He’s making them pay, and he works hard every day, even in practice, to make those plays. It’s no surprise he’s making them in the game. … It’s great any time you have two good corners playing opposite each other. They have to throw it somewhere, and it’s a challenge because you always have to be on your game since the ball could always come at you.”

That’s exactly what Bland is counting on.