How basketball helps Cowboys cornerback Jourdan Lewis in football

Dallas Cowboys cornerback Jourdan Lewis suffered a potentially career-ending foot injury a few years ago and spent much of the 2023 season rehabilitating the injury. Although it was his worst career season, he was able to play in 16 games and slowly got back to form. By the end of the season, Lewis was nearly back to his old self. This year, he’s back again and will get opportunities to play in other areas besides the slot.

In fact, he said one of the reasons he decided to stay on with the Cowboys is because he wanted to play under new defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer. Zimmer told him he would be used in different ways and he said he wants to experience that. “It won’t just be manned up on the slot all day,” said Lewis.

One of the skills that makes Lewis valuable at any spot on the field is his lateral quickness, and something he said helps him with that is basketball.

How basketball helps Lewis in football

Jourdan Lewis is a big fan of basketball and often posts about it on his social media. In an interview with 105.3 The Fan, Lewis said playing basketball helps him with his moves against shifty receivers. Playing in the slot position is one of the hardest in the game. Without the sideline, the nickel cornerbacks are vulnerable to a 180-degree release and many times can only act to limit damage rather than actually stop a pass from happening.

“It’s very hard to play slot,” said Lewis. “Everybody would agree with me when I say that’s probably one of the hardest positions in the secondary because you gotta go out there and hit like a linebacker, but you gotta cover guys in all of the space.”

Lewis said that because he started as a receiver, he was already familiar with the moves of his opponents. That helped him to be able to read them, but it’s the basketball moves that helped him to actually stop them.

“A crossover and having that time clock in your head, knowing that he can’t do that many moves,” Lewis said. “Trying to see when guys set up, like where their heads are and stuff like that, trying to set up the crossover. Getting off the line, it helped a lot. It definitely helped a lot sliding your feet. Just lateral quickness, it helps to try to match up those releases. I definitely give a lot of that to playing basketball.”

Lewis encourages all young athletes to play multiple sports, as they translate to each other in many ways. Another funny comment Lewis made was that he once “dropped” quarterback Dak Prescott with one of his basketball moves and called it one of his “antics”.

“Dak won’t tell you, I dropped him,” Lewis said. “Made him touch earth.”

Lewis didn’t provide further details on when and how the dropping occurred but we hope Prescott will respond and let us know.