Remember when quarterbacks facing the Dallas Cowboys were petrified of throwing DaRon Bland's way?
Oh, you don't?
That's because even in the midst of his legendary, record-breaking 2023 campaign, in which he picked off nine passes and returned an astounding five of them for a score, Bland got picked on in coverage a lot. He was targeted 93 times that year and still gave up 730 yards and 3 touchdowns.
But intercepting that many passes and allowing fewer touchdowns than he scored undoubtedly made Bland a net positive. However, he was always a boom-or-bust cornerback, and he boomed a lot in his first two years. In recent seasons, and especially in 2026, he's just been busting.
The problem is not that Bland makes mistakes; every player does. The defensive environment in Dallas hasn't been conducive to much success over the last few campaigns, either. But the issue is that Bland simply gets paid too much to make self-inflicted errors.
And the worst part is that there is no real way to wiggle out of Bland's contract. The Cowboys made their DaRon Bland bed, and unfortunately, they must lie in it for the next few years.
Cowboys' DaRon Bland has been an unmitigated disaster in 2026
Bland was supposed to be the top cornerback for this team, at least until Joey Porter Jr. arrived, and he has simply failed to meet expectations, in a simple sense. While the first three weeks were up and down, to put it kindly, the last two games have been absolutely appalling for Bland.
According to Pro Football Focus, he has been targeted 13 times in the two contests and has allowed nine catches for 179 yards and a touchdown. The worst part is that he is letting pass-catchers run free, as Bland has given up 51 yards after the catches and big completions of 52 and 64 yards.
His slipping on Tez Johnson's deep post and allowing the aforementioned 64-yard completion, paired with playing off Emeka Egbuka on 3rd-and-21 to allow a long conversion, is just peak Bland. That's who he has become as a cornerback, and it is incredibly disappointing. But it's the reality.
Without him taking the ball away, Bland really serves no purpose in an NFL secondary. He always gave up yards and touchdowns, but the tradeoff was that he made plays in return. Since that 2023 season, though, Bland has picked off just one pass while being targeted 147 times in 24 games.
And again, there's nothing the Cowboys can really do to comfortably move on.
Dallas has no feasible way out of their DaRon Bland conundrum
Before this season, Bland had his contract restructured, giving him more money up front. As we just went through, he hasn't earned that, and it didn't exactly prevent Dallas from being in cap hell with him later on down the road. Let's look at what the Cowboys' options are, via Spotrac.
One option is to take the "out" in Bland's contract after the 2026 NFL season, but that would leave a $21.5 million dead cap hit for 2027. In what should still be a contending window, it's hard to justify setting that money on fire for Bland not to play for Dallas, as bad as he has been.
Another option would be to keep him on the roster, with his salary cap hits being $19.5 million, $13.3 million and $17.5 million over the next three years. That's a lot of money to pay someone who is clearly declining and should probably be in more of a reserve role behind Porter Jr. and Cobie Durant.
The other big problem with keeping him around, though, is that if the Cowboys want to cut him at any point in 2027 or 2028, the dead cap hit would be the aforementioned $21.5 million or $15.0 million, depending on which year they part ways with him.
Trading him is the only way to get some of that money off the books, and it stands to reason that nobody will be trading for Bland in his current form, especially at his price point. It's looking like Dallas should not have given Bland so much money after he hurt his foot. Who could have guessed?
Bland not performing is a huge letdown. But the fact that the Cowboys are pretty much stuck with him is worse. They can have him start and constantly fall short, sit on the bench with a big price tag or have him haunt them from beyond the dead cap hit grave. None of those are good options.
Or maybe he'll rewind the clock and get better. But I wouldn't count on that.
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