Porter Jr. Is Here. Overshown Is Not. The Defense Keeps Shrinking.

I already wrote about the Porter Jr. trade yesterday — the secondary needed a corner who could actually play, and Dallas went and got one. That part holds. What's changed since is that DeMarvion Overshown has been ruled out for Week 4, which puts the linebacker situation back in the spotlight at the worst possible time.

Overshown was the name the Cowboys were leaning on to anchor that position. The depth chart behind him is thin by any reasonable standard — only two linebackers logged meaningful snaps all of last season, and the team has been scrambling at the position since before Week 1. I noted back in September that practice squad linebackers were getting calls they shouldn't have to take. That hasn't changed; it's just gotten quieter, which is its own kind of bad sign.

So Dallas heads into Week 4 with a freshly acquired corner who helps one part of a broken secondary, and a linebacker room that is now short its most important piece for at least another week. The Porter Jr. move was real addition. The Overshown absence is a real subtraction. Right now those two things are roughly canceling each other out, and a defense that was already being outscored all season doesn't have margin for that kind of math.