The Dallas Cowboys are facing a full-blown crisis at cornerback.
With the 2025 regular season fast approaching, the team’s secondary is rapidly thinning due to a wave of injuries.
If the Cowboys want to remain contenders in the NFC, they must act now—and that means signing a proven veteran like Asante Samuel Jr. or bringing back Stephon Gilmore.
Injury Bug Hits Dallas Secondary Hard
As of the final week of July, the Cowboys are down multiple cornerbacks:
- Caelen Caron is out 4–6 weeks with a hyperextended knee.
- Josh Butler is sidelined with a knee injury
- Shavon Revel Jr., the team’s rookie corner, remains out while recovering from a college injury.
- DaRon Bland is questionable.
- Trevon Diggs is still recovering from a torn ACL and may not be 100% to open the season.
That leaves Dallas with a depleted cornerback room that includes Kaiir Elam, C.J. Goodwin, Andrew Booth Jr., Israel Mukuamu, Kemon Hall, Alijah Clark, and Troy Pride Jr.—a mix of special teamers, young developmental players, and slot hybrids.
None are proven full-time NFL starters on the outside.
Why the Cowboys Must Sign A Cornerback
This situation is untenable. The Cowboys’ defense already ranked 31st in scoring defense last season and 32nd in red zone defense.
With the NFC loaded with elite wide receivers—A.J. Brown, Justin Jefferson, Amon-Ra St. Brown, and Brandon Aiyuk—Dallas cannot afford to roll into the season this thin at corner.
Waiting on players to heal is no longer a viable option. The Cowboys need someone who can contribute immediately, stabilize the secondary, and give new defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus more flexibility in coverage.
Asante Samuel Jr.: Youth and Versatility
Asante Samuel Jr. checks all the boxes.
At 25 years old, he brings starting experience, man coverage skills, and the ability to play both outside and nickel.
In 2023, with the Chargers, he posted a 75.6 coverage grade and allowed just 64.7% completions when targeted.
He only played four games in 2024.
Samuels’s skillet fits Eberflus’s scheme, and his ability to mirror outside routes and play the ball makes him a natural upgrade over any current healthy option on the roster.
He offers long-term upside and immediate impact.
Stephon Gilmore: The Familiar, Reliable Choice
If the Cowboys want a known commodity, Stephon Gilmore is the move.
Gilmore started all 17 games for Dallas in 2023, holding quarterbacks to an 83.3 passer rating and earning a 72.3 coverage grade.
Gilmore brings leadership, press-man skills, and trust. He also knows the locker room, coaches, and can pick up the playbook quickly, making him a plug-and-play fit in Week 1.
No Time Left to Wait
The Cowboys’ cornerback depth has been wiped out.
Relying on young, unproven players could be the defense’s undoing. Whether it’s the experienced Gilmore or the young Samuel Jr., Dallas must act fast to secure a reliable starter.
The window to fix this problem is now—before NFC quarterbacks start exploiting it.
They will probably roll with what they have now. They already did their one splashy type move with Pickens. They are done. Philly may grab Samuel.
Samuel is coming off a pretty serious injury, that’s why nobody wants to sign him!! I don’t even think he’s cleared to practice yet!! And there has to be something going on with Gilmore too if he’s not signed yet!! There’s other teams that have recently signed UFL corners and no name corners while these 2 options are still out there, so there’s a reason for that!! And I think Samuels injury is his problem!! And I’m not sure about Gilmore!! But it really wouldn’t make sense for us to sign some big name free agent anyways, we already have a bunch of really good corners, we’re just waiting for them to return from injury!! And when they do return, what will we do with these players!? They’re both too good to just sit on the bench, but when our injured players return, that’s exactly what will happen!! So it don’t make sense to sign them just to put them on the bench after a week or 2!! And as far as our injured corners go, Diggs should be back by week 1 if not sooner!! It is possible he misses the first game or 2, but that’ll be about it!! Bland isn’t injured, he was just out for the birth of his baby!! Shavon Revel will definitely be back before week 1!! Caelen Carson and Josh butler won’t be playing much if any at all anyways and Kaiir Elam is a really good player, and he’s shown nothing but that since he’s been on the field with us!! I think he just needed a change of scenery, and some coaches to show him they believe in him, cause he definitely wasn’t getting that from the coaches in Buffalo!! But we have plenty of corners…. Good ones, we just won’t have one of them until the start of the season, and even he mite be back by then!! But with the other ones we have, we’ll be fine without him!! And all of them will be ready by the time week 1 comes around!! So I think as long as they don’t have any set backs and they all still return by week 1 we’ll be fine, even if Diggs has to miss a game or 2!! But one name you put up there that should be on the injury list is Andrew Booth, he is also injured!! But he should be back by the start of the season too!! And you said we have a depleted cornerback room, but then put Mukuamu and Elam on that list, like they are nobody’s, but the fact is that both of them are actually really good players!! And both of them are still healthy right now, so there’s 2 starters for us right away, if Diggs isn’t ready by week 1, and the other one is Bland!! We can have Bland and Elam on the outside and Mukuamu in the slot, and that is a good starting group!! And by week one we’ll have Revel and Booth ready to go too and believe it or not, but Booth has actually been looking like he’s gonna have his breakout year this year, so he mite be a good backup to have!! Either way, by the time week 1 comes around, we’re not gonna have that many corners injured, they all will be back from injuries before week 1, except maybe Diggs, but even he mite be back by then!! But even if he’s not, we’ll be fine with all the others we have!!
And you mentioned how bad our defense was last year in scoring defense and red zone, but you failed to mention that we were playing with practice squad players on defense for half the season cause we were dealing with so many injuries on that side of the ball!! Our team dealt with more injuries than about any other team in the NFL last year!! And I doubt anybody had more practice squad players playing for them than we did last year either!! That’s why we were so bad on defense!! If our defense was healthy all last year, we wouldn’t have been near that bad!! So whatever our defense was ranked last year can just be thrown out, because our defense is a lot better this year and our injured players are all back now, except for a couple corners, and like I said above, they’ll be back by the time week 1 comes!! So there’s no reason to think our defense will be anything close to what it was last year!!
a Dallas Cowboys fan, since the 70’s the Cowboys CB situation is that great anyway