Jaishawn Barham needed one preseason game to prove Cowboys found a gem

Many wondered how much Jaishawn Barham would play in his preseason debut. Coming off a groin injury and with the regular season on the horizon, you certainly couldn't blame the Dallas Cowboys if they played it safe and pulled Barham after one drive.

The irony? Barham looked so good on his initial series that Dallas probably should've taken him out right then. At that point, it was completely justifiable to put him in bubble wrap until the regular season.

It took Barham just two snaps to record his first tackle for loss. He ripped past a Cardinals offensive lineman before completely engulfing the running back behind the line of scrimmage.

Have a look for yourself and try telling us that he doesn't look like a gem.

The Dallas Cowboys may have drafted a special player in Jaishawn Barham

The TFL sequence was just the opening act for Barham.

On the Cowboys' next defensive possession, he made another Cardinals offensive lineman look silly by zipping into the backfield and stopping the RB in his tracks.

In terms of snuffing out plays before they happen, this rep is exactly what you want from your linebackers. He read it, attacked the gap, shed the block with relative ease, and made a clean tackle. It was poetry -- and violence -- in motion.

Whatever "it" is, there's no question that Barham has it. It’s hard to quantify, but you know it when you see it: A processing speed and a physicality that instantly changes the energy of an offense or defense.

Some players just carry a different aura the moment they step between the lines, and Barham’s is impossible to ignore. You feel all of his hits. His pursuit angles are aggressive. He was in the game to wreck plays.

By the middle of the second quarter, Barham tallied five tackles, a run stop, and a quarterback pressure. More important than that, he looked like a starting middle linebacker.

Jaishawn Barham also called plays in his Cowboys debut

The initial tackle for loss was all Dallas needed to see, but Kristi Scales reported pregame that Barham would have the opportunity to call the defense. It stands to reason that Brian Schottenheimer and Christian Parker left him in to get used to calling plays.

It didn't take Barham very long in training camp to prove he should be on the field. Whether he swipes a starting role from DeMarvion Overshown or Dee Winters remains to be seen, but the Cowboys have to be feeling pretty darn good about their linebacker depth.

Even though Barham played on the edge in his final season at Michigan, he was always at his best in college defending the run. While other teams saw his versatility as a drawback (why else did he fall to Round 3?), the Cowboys viewed it as an asset.

The biggest knock on Barham coming out was that he too often played in overdrive, leading to overpursuit that took him out of plays.

Thanks to sound coaching from Parker and linebackers coach Scott Symons, Barham is playing with more control. And Parker is going to be selective about when he lets Barham pin his ears back and attack, so he'll have plenty of opportunities to put that overdrive to good use.

Dallas having a clear plan for Barham when they drafted him is a big reason this is working so well, but the rookie deserves plenty of credit for forcing their hand and making it impossible to keep him off the field.

It's only one preseason game, but it looks like Dallas got a steal.

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