Where will the Cowboys defense rank at the end of the season?

If you’ve been following the Dallas Cowboys this offseason you know that the major issue they are working on is the defense. After 2025’s debacle on that side of the ball, the organization basically decided to do a full reboot.

Out went Matt Eberflus, in came Christian Parker. With Parker came a new defensive scheme, a base 3-4 with plenty of flexibility. To man this new scheme, Dallas switched out much of the personnel on that side of the ball. Players like Caleb Downs, Malachi Lawrence, Jaishawn Barham, Jalen Thompson, Rashan Gary, Cobie Durant and others were brought in to try and revive the fortunes of the Dallas defense.

The Cowboys offense comes back basically intact, and that’s a good thing considering how effective they were last season. Conventional wisdom holds that if Dallas had any kind of a decent defense in 2025, they could have been contenders. That conventional wisdom still holds up for 2026.

So with that in mind – where do you think the Cowboys defense will end up by the end of the season?

We’ve provided three tiers: Top 10, middle tier or bottom tier. Vote in the poll then hit the comments and let us know why you chose the option you did.

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