Cowboys defender with two years left on $21 million deal may no longer fit

reidhanson

Matt Eberflus is the Dallas Cowboys new defensive coordinator and with him comes a new defensive scheme. As a former Cowboys coach, Eberflus isn’t foreign around these parts. His scheme is much more straight forward than that of Dan Quinn or Mike Zimmer. He stunts less, blitzes less, and disguises his coverages less.

For safeties like Donovan Wilson and Malik Hooker it means a higher proportion of split safety looks. This impacts both players since most of those two players’ careers have been spent in some form of single-high secondaries. By most predictions, Wilson won’t be able to play in the box as often as before and Hooker won’t be able to play centerfield as often as before.

Hooker’s ability to effectively play as a single-high safety made him a valuable commodity for the Dallas defense over the years. His range and consistency made him a top player at one of the NFL’s most demanding roles.

With more split safety looks on the horizon, Hooker’s top skill, his range, loses some of its value. Split-safety looks like Cover 2, 2-man and Quarters don’t require the same extraordinary range as a Cover 1 or Cover 3 scheme. As such, the role is easier to fill and doesn’t require a high investment cost.

Hooker signed a three-year, $21 million extension in 2023 that runs through 2026. At a cap cost of $7.5 million in 2025, Hooker is one of the top-10 cap hits and certainly qualifies as a high investment cost (per OTC).

The Cowboys got a taste of Hooker playing more diverse coverage roles in 2024 when Zimmer increased the amount of 2-high looks Dallas played mixing and matching Wilson and Hooker in the process. It didn’t turn out well. Both safeties posted their lowest graded qualifying seasons of their respective careers in 2024.

In previous seasons in Dallas, Hooker was a player most teams avoided. He was rarely targeted and routinely ranked among the best safeties in yardage allowed. Playing in a less demanding split safety role more in 2024, Hooker appeared to regress, giving up more yards than ever before in Dallas. Not focusing on his area of expertise, as demanding as that expertise may be, was a bad thing for Hooker and possibly a sign of things to come in 2025.

Like Wilson, his counterpart, Hooker’s return to the Cowboys in 2025 is far from assured. He’s an expensive player coming off a down year. Significant costs could be saved by letting him go if the Cowboys think they can adequately replace his production.