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FRISCO, TX — It was a busy, and joyful, day for the Dallas Cowboys on Tuesday, March 4, as they avoided having to place a franchise tag on defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa and instead came to terms on a four-year, $80 million contract extension that includes more than $50 million in guaranteed money.
That means the biggest unrestricted free agent in the building, and the atop his position this offseason, will not hit the open market at all and, as such, the Cowboys are solidified at one of the interior defensive line positions.
Odighizuwa is the heart and soul of the defensive interior who is also still young enough to have yet to reach his full potential, while also having already proven he can be a force to be reckoned with.
And as Mazi Smith develops to his left, are there free agent options that can solidify depth for the defensive interior as a whole, not unlike what Jonathan Hankins did in 2023?
P.S. With the deal on Odighizuwa in the books, you can likely understand why I didn't include Milton Williams in the list below.
[FYI: *Be sure to check out the entire ‘What’s Next?*' series as a primer to "Open Market".]
What's Here:
Chauncey Golston: For the first three years of his NFL career, Golston was trapped by his own versatility. Most of his time in Dallas has featured him as interior line depth, and that's why he's on this episode of this series and not the defensive end portion, though his best season, by far, came in 2024, when he was tasked with helping out at the edge due to a ravaging of injury that cost the Cowboys several bodies there. Golston produced a career-high 5.5 sacks off of the edge, but also has value as a defensive tackle, making it worth consideration to keep him around.
What's Out There:
Note: These players will be unrestricted on March 13, barring a newly-signed deal with their incumbent team prior to that date.
BJ Hill: A little less costly than Williams, at a projection of $9 million annually (per Spotrac), Hill still presents a tangibly impactful option for the Cowboys at defensive tackle. Also a former third-round pick (2018), he spent the first four seasons of his NFL career combating the Cowboys for the Giants before joining the Bengals, where he's been since 2021. He's been more consistent than Williams by averaging four sacks per season over the last four campaigns, with 225 combined tackles in that timeframe, the latter showing exactly how often he's involved in both the pass rush and run defense.
Poona Ford: This portion of my list begin the midrange of financial expense, with Ford projected at near $6 million annually, and that is good value for a player who logged 17 starts last season. They weren't quiet starts, either, seeing as he not only had three sacks and 39 combined tackles, eight for a loss, but also five pass deflections (more than some defensive backs in the NFL) and an interception. His ability to disrupt passing lanes is stellar, and he's far from shabby in collapsing the pocket and defending the run — the fifth-highest graded interior defensive lineman in the league in 2024.
Teair Tart: Also on this end of the pricing spectrum is Tart, hovering around a projection of $5 million annually, though there is quite the value gap between Tart and Ford. Whereas Ford has proven himself a consistent starter, Tart hasn't logged a single start since 2019, but was available for all 17 games last season for the Chargers. I'm in for Tart as a depth piece, if he's willing to come in at lower than $5 million, because we've seen firsthand just how much depth can be tested at times in Dallas, and in the NFL as a whole, once the injury bug starts getting hungry.
Levi Onwuzurike: There's a chance Onwuzurike could be a better and more viable depth option than Tart, his projected $4 million annual cost also combining with the benefit of youth (he's only 26 years old) and the fact he entered the league with a higher pedigree (a former second-round pick) who earned 10 starts for the No. 1-seeded Lions in 2024. I love what he brings to the table, and it really fits what the Cowboys would need going forward and, like Williams, he's also from North Texas — a native of Allen, Texas, a short 30-minute drive north of downtown Dallas — so you can believe his ears would be wide open t
