4 Cowboys free agency targets Dallas can realistically sign this offseason

The Dallas Cowboys need a lot of help on defense this offseason. They made a good move by hiring Christian Parker as their defensive coordinator. He spent the last two seasons with the Eagles under Vic Fangio, and we know that's a scheme that has a high ceiling and a decently high floor. 

The thing that’s going to raise that floor is the players, and the Cowboys don't have many good ones. Sure, they have eight picks in the draft this year, and two of those are first-rounders, but expecting a rookie defensive back to come in and be as good as Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean is one hell of a wish. 

That means they’re going to have to be very active in free agency, and that’s not something that they’ve been good at recently. They just restructured three or four guys’ deals and freed up a cool $50-ish million. That’s a good start.

I want to preface this by saying that it’s a bummer the Cowboys have to go through this. They have to make some massive changes on defense because that unit was historically terrible. If they were simply mediocre last season, they’d probably just roll with it. Now they’re going to take good players out of the free agency pool, and it’s going to make everyone else sad. 

Reed Blankenship (S, Eagles)

This is Christian Parker's first defensive coordinator job, and he’s going to need players to be translators to get that Fangio scheme in place. Luckily for him, Reed Blankenship is a free agent. 

Blankenship was a UDFA for the Eagles in 2022, became a starter in 2023, and was a captain in 2025. The dude knows what he’s doing, and in that Fangio scheme, a traffic-directing safety is massively important.

He’s not a great fit for a lot of teams, but he’s a perfect fit for the Cowboys. That team needs a gigantic defensive overhaul, and getting a guy who knows the coach, the defense, and is a really good football player is a perfect spot to start.

Nakobe Dean (LB, Eagles)

You can say a lot of the same things about Nakobe Dean as you can for Reed Blankenship, except Dean is a better all-around football player than Blankenship.

When he blitzes, he does this thing where he looks like a bully running through a sand castle. Except instead of a sand castle, it’s a professional running back in pass protection. It’s one of the most fun things to watch.

He’s not as good in coverage, but that’s a high bar to clear; he’s still very solid. In 2024, he tore his patellar tendon, and you might’ve thought he was going to lose a step. He didn’t. 

He’s been a cornerstone of the Eagles' defensive dominance over the past couple of seasons, and if the Cowboys can get him and Blankenship, they’ll be on their way to not being a complete laughingstock. 

Nahshon Wright (CB, Bears)

In 2023, DaRon Bland led the NFL in interceptions, interception yards, and pick-sixes. When he became eligible for a contract in 2025, he signed a four-year extension for $92 million ($50 million guaranteed). 

No one in the NFL world cares more about flashy numbers than Jerry Jones, and Nahshon Wright has those flashy numbers. Last season, Wright was tied for second in the NFL with five interceptions. When you’re in a contract year, you don’t get much better than that. The thing is, that was very much an outlier of a season for him.  

Last season, he played over 1,000 defensive snaps. In his first four seasons in the NFL (three in Dallas, one in Minnesota), he played fewer than 300 total defensive snaps and had one interception… and it was in a Week 17 game against the Josh Dobbs-led Titans. 

The move is to not sign guys when they’re coming off the best year in their career, and that’s exactly what's going to happen with whoever signs Wright. Was last year an anomaly for him, or was he just taking advantage of his playing time? 

That’s a very important question, and it’s going to cost you at least $12 million to find out. 

Cor’Dale Flott (CB, Giants)

Cor’Dale Flott doesn’t stink. If you paid attention to the Giants at the beginning of the season before you decided they weren’t worth your time, you saw Flott struggle. As the season went on, he became a pretty solid starting-caliber cornerback, and he beat out Deonte Banks for that starting job.

…And that all happened with Shane Bowen and Charlie Bullen as his defensive coordinator. That’s to say: he did it without an NFL-caliber defensive coordinator.

If the Cowboys sign him, you’ve got to think he’s not going to be mega or even kinda-expensive. That’s exactly what you’re looking for when it comes to needing to rebuild an entire defensive backfield. 

The other option is that they go all in on Jamel Dean or Jaylen Watson and assume that one guy is going to save them. Jerry Jones is a big enough ding-dong to think that’s a good idea, but I don’t think Parker is… which is a bummer. 

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