Given their inability to sign a new starting linebacker here in the opening days of free agency, and given the relative lack of options still on the market for the Dallas Cowboys, it increasingly looks as though the team will need  to do two things in the coming weeks to fill what is a very obvious hole: add an experienced veteran, and use one of their two Top 20 picks to get one of the top linebackers in this draft.

This is, no doubt, a very good linebacker draft. The Cowboys won’t have a shot at Arvell Reese, who wants to play the edge anyway. But there is a chance that Sonny Styles drops to No. 12, and that would be the best-case scenario for Dallas. If they have to wait until pick No. 20, they’ll have to hope Georgia’s CJ Allen is still on the board, or reach for someone like Texas Tech’s Jacob Rodriguez.

Even if the draft works out favorably, the Cowboys will still be looking at a situation in which they’re dropping a rookie into a key spot. They’ll want a veteran both as insurance and as a mentor. Which raises the question; Why haven’t the Cowboys already signed Bobby Wagner?

Bobby Wagner an Ideal Fit for Cowboys

Wagner, of course, is a future Hall of Fame linebacker, a 10-time Pro Bowler with 11 All-Pro first or second-team selections on his resume. He has won a Super Bowl, he was with Brian Schottenheimer in Seattle, he was the Walter Payton Man of the Year for 2025, and he can still play–he was the No. 9-ranked linebacker in the league at Pro Football Focus last season.

He is 35, and though he has started every game but one in the last 10 years, he would not have to do that in Dallas. Wagner and the rookie the team picks would just need to be better than Kenneth Murray and Logan Wilson were last year, and it’s a low bar to clear.

Spotrac projects him garnering a one-year, $7.7 million contract. The Cowboys can afford that, and they should.

‘I Want Bobby Wagner’

Former Cowboys receiver Jesse Holley, now an analyst at DLLS Cowboys and elsewhere, would really like to see Wagner in Dallas.

“I want Bobby Wagner,” Holey said on the DLLS podcast. “Here’s why: I am not looking for Bobby Wagner to come onto this football team and be a starter. Not what I want Bobby Wagner for. I do think Bobby Wagner does—I think Bobby Wagner is super-intelligent, Bobby Wagner has taken very good care of himself. He still has a little bit of juice left. But I don’t want Bobby Wagner as a starter. What I want Bobby Wagner for, is a teaching piece. I want Bobby Wagner around my young linebackers.”

Cowboys Need a ‘Big Bro’ on Defense

Holley also said that, as it becomes clear that the Cowboys will be using a rookie in the middle next year, they’ll want someone who can “big bro” the new guy. Wagner is ideal for that role.

Said Holley: “I am starting to believe, as a way of this thing is working out as of this week, I believe the Cowboys now probably will shift their focus to the draft for linebacker. And if that’s the case, then you need—I don’t think DeMarvion Overshown is to a place yet where he can big-bro somebody. Where he can put somebody under his wing. …

“I think having somebody like Bobby Wagner in your locker room, he is a tremendous leader. He can give that kind of leadership that Dak Prescott gives the offense, he can give you that on defense.”