Dallas Entered 2026 With a Defense Built on Hope. Now the Hope Is Injured Too.
The problem with building a defense around starters who were already covering for a thin roster is that you have no margin when those starters go down. That is precisely where Dallas finds itself heading into Week 2. Malik Hooker, who logged 52 tackles across 12 games last season as one of the Cowboys' most reliable defensive backs, is now dealing with a fractured forearm. DeMarvion Overshown, the linebacker the organization was counting on to anchor a position that was already dangerously undermanned, is listed as Questionable with a hamstring injury. Two starters. Two of the thinnest positions on the roster. Both compromised at the same time.
The linebacker situation is where the math gets genuinely uncomfortable. Last season, only two linebackers logged meaningful playing time for Dallas — Rashan Gary and Von Miller splitting the load at roughly 52 and 48 percent respectively. James Houston is the next name on the depth chart, with no recorded production from 2025. Overshown was supposed to be the answer to that fragility, the off-ball presence who could hold the middle together. With his status in doubt, Dallas is essentially asking a position group that was already one injury away from crisis to function without the player who was supposed to prevent that crisis.
The secondary picture is similarly grim, though the structure of it is slightly different. Jalen Thompson leads the DB group, with Hooker behind him and P.J. Locke third. That is not a deep room under any circumstances. A fractured forearm is not a week-to-week ailment — it is the kind of injury that can reshape a season's defensive identity, forcing coordinators to simplify coverage schemes and ask other players to carry responsibilities they were never meant to handle full-time.
What makes this sting is that neither of these positions was a strength to begin with. The Cowboys entered 2026 knowing they had no viable depth behind Quinnen Williams at defensive tackle, knowing their linebacker rotation was thin by count, knowing their secondary had already taken a hit when a former Cowboys safety departed for Pittsburgh in the offseason. The front office spent the summer focused on contract extensions — Prescott, Lamb, Pickens, Williams — while the defensive depth void went largely unaddressed. The Hooker and Overshown injuries did not create this problem. They just removed the last layer of insulation protecting it.
My read is that the Cowboys' defense was never going to be a strength in 2026 regardless. The offense — Prescott, Pickens on his franchise tag, Lamb, Jake Ferguson — has enough firepower to keep Dallas in games. Last season's 57% win rate in games decided by a single score proved this offense can execute when it matters. But that close-game edge eroded as the year went on, and a defense that cannot hold leads in the fourth quarter is the most direct explanation for why Dallas went 4-6 in its final ten games. Adding two more injured starters at positions that were already skeletal does not change the Cowboys' ceiling. It just makes the floor much harder to see.