Why haven't the Cowboys signed Bobby Wagner? The Hall of Fame linebacker offers veteran leadership and mentorship, ideal for developing young defensive talent.
FRISCO - If a team doesn't "fill a need'' in NFL free agency, it's all the more likely to force itself to "fill a need'' in the NFL Draft.
And that is always and forever unwise.
Maybe the Dallas Cowboys deserve a back pat for at least trying, as during the recent opening of the NFL year, they gave serious chase to Tier 1 linebackers Quay Walker and Nakobe Dean, both of who spurned Dallas to instead sign with the Las Vegas Raiders.
Or maybe failure is failure, and the story is simply about their inability to sign a new starting linebacker.
There is now a relative lack of options, though we think names like Bobby Okereke and Shaq Thompson merit mention.
Or ... assuming the Cowboys' own in-house mock drafts establish that they aren't going to land a starter here with pick No. 12 (will Ohio State's Sonny Styles still be there?) or at pick No. 20 (is that too high for Georgia’s C.J. Allen and Texas Tech's Jacob Rodriguez?) ...
Maybe a classy future Hall-of-Famer is the answer.
Wagner is a 10-time Pro Bowler with an amazing 11 All-Pro first or second-team selections on his resume. He has won a Super Bowl, he was with coach Brian Schottenheimer when they were both in Seattle, and he was the Walter Payton Man of the Year for 2025.
Classy.
He's 35 ... but as of 2025 in Washington, he showed he can still play, as he was a top-10-ranked linebacker by Pro Football Focus last season.
Oh, and he's an iron man, as he has missed just one game in the last 10 years.
Our friend Jesse Holley of DLLS suggests that Wagner is a fit here for one distinct reason.
“I want Bobby Wagner,” Holey said. “Here’s why: I am not looking for Bobby Wagner to come onto this football team and be a starter. ... He still has a little bit of juice left. But ... what I want Bobby Wagner for, is a teaching piece. I want Bobby Wagner around my young linebackers ... (to) big-bro somebody. Where he can put somebody under his wing. …''
We'll buy all of that. And Dallas should buy it, too, at a projected one-year cost of under $8 million. But we'd disagree with Holley only with this: Once Wagner showed up at The Star, even with the goal of mentoring, it wouldn't take long for the teacher to be better than the pupil.
The Cowboys could use Wagner as a "big bro,'' for sure. But based on his track record, they could also use him as a centerpiece of their defense.