This offseason, that will need to be the case once again. Only two defensive ends \u2014 Donovan Ezeiruaku and James Houston \u2014 are under contract, the linebacker position desperately needs consistency, and the secondary is simply looking for healthy bodies.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start in the edge room. The Cowboys will need young and veteran bodies alike. Re-signing Clowney has already been pointed to as a priority for the front office. The team has also shown a tendency to sign former top-100 draft picks heading into a second contract. Names like Baltimore\u2019s David Ojabo, Philadelphia\u2019s Azeez Ojulari and Cincinnati\u2019s Joseph Ossai exist as affordable options on the open market.<\/p>\n
But even at the trade deadline in 2025, the Cowboys looked at names like Tennessee\u2019s Arden Key, the Los Angeles Chargers\u2019 Odafe Oweh and Atlanta\u2019s Arnold Ebiketie. If the checkbook is willing to have an extra zero written on some pages, those options would provide immediate production without the need of an early draft pick at the position.<\/p>\n
At linebacker, the team desperately needs a communicator. Nakobe Dean hits the open market after two years playing under Parker in Philadelphia, although he hasn\u2019t had lead-communicator experience since 2023. The New York Jets\u2019 Quincy Williams could look for a reunion with his brother, Quinnen.<\/p>\n
But if there is any position on defense that needs valuable money spent, it has to be linebacker. Big names like Washington\u2019s Bobby Wagner, New Orleans\u2019 Demario Davis, Green Bay\u2019s Quay Walker and Cleveland\u2019s Devin Bush are durable, effective leaders in the middle who would provide day one efficiency.<\/p>\n
The secondary has so many wild cards that it will be tough to predict who will return in 2026. Donovan Wilson is a free agent, DaRon Bland just had a second foot surgery, and Shavon Revel Jr. has yet to play at 100 percent health. Could Parker bring Philadelphia\u2019s Reed Blankenship to Dallas with him in free agency? How about bringing in a veteran cornerback to provide reliability and consistency?<\/p>\n
Options will present themselves in free agency. And after such a productive season on offense, the majority of the focus can be put on the defensive side of the ball to give Parker the pieces that are needed to compete.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This offseason, that will need to be the case once again. Only two defensive ends \u2014 Donovan Ezeiruaku…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,932,104,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-145354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-cowboys-news","10":"tag-dallas-headlines","11":"tag-dallas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}