Coming into the 2024 season, the Dallas Cowboys cornerback room looked like one of the strongest position groups on their entire roster. The biggest boost to the group came in the fact that Dallas was returning their number one cornerback, Trevon Diggs, after he missed nearly the entire 2023 regular season with an ACL injury.

The Cowboys were set to pair Diggs with All-Pro DaRon Bland, creating what on paper looked like the best cornerback duo in the NFL. To make the position group even deeper, the Cowboys re-signed slot cornerback Jourdan Lewis in free agency and spent their fifth-round pick on Wake Forrest cornerback Caelen Carson.

Dallas appeared to have one of the strongest and deepest cornerback rooms in all of football. Unfortunately for the Cowboys, nothing has gone according to plan. The bad news for the cornerback room started two weeks before the beginning of the regular season when DaRon Bland broke a bone in his foot, forcing him to miss significant time.

When Bland’s first injury occurred, word around the Cowboys was the All-Pro corner could be back in five to six weeks. The injury ended up being more severe after a setback, and the talented cornerback ended up missing the Cowboys’ first 10 games of the regular season.

This was just the beginning of Dallas’ injury woes at the cornerback spot. After Bland, nearly every impactful cornerback on the Cowboys’ roster has dealt with injury issues at some point this season. Trevon Diggs and Josh Butler were the worst victims of the injury bug, suffering season-ending injuries that will force them to miss a significant portion of next season.

Injury issues weren’t the only problem for Dallas’ cornerback group this season. Even when the group was relatively healthy, outside of Jourdan Lewis who has had an All-Pro-caliber season, the performance was disappointing. Caelen Carson was picked on with success consistently early on in the season, never getting his job back after a shoulder injury, and Diggs and Bland both showed some rust returning from different ailments.

As if all this didn’t create enough uncertainty about the future of the position group, the Cowboys currently have three cornerbacks (Bland, Diggs, out for at least half of 2025, Carson) under contract for the 2025 season.

Unless they have a shift in philosophy, it will be hard for the Cowboys to bring back Jourdan Lewis, who is a free agent at season’s end. With how he’s played this year, Lewis will almost certainly be offered a multi-year contract worth more money than the Cowboys will be willing to match. If Lewis does walk, Dallas would be down to just Bland and Carson as their starting corners until Diggs returns from injury late in the regular season.

After the performance he put on display this season, it would be very hard to envision the Cowboys trusting Carson enough to enter the season with him as one of their starting cornerbacks. If this is the case, it will almost force Dallas to spend one of the first three draft picks on a cornerback or acquire a starting-caliber corner that can play outside in free agency.

There are plenty of glaring needs on the Cowboys’ roster, but cornerback has quickly shot up toward the top of the list. With their best cornerback set to leave and injuries mounting at the position, cornerback has suddenly turned into one of Dallas’ biggest needs this offseason.