The time is coming when the Cowboys will have to choose between Trevon Diggs and DaRon Bland

The Cowboys need to evaluate their cornerback depth this offseason.

The Dallas Cowboys have a lot of difficult decisions to make this offseason. Over the next several months, they’ll need to figure out what they want this team to look like next season and beyond. One position group that presents some challenging decisions is cornerback.

Yesterday, we ran through a couple of decisions they’ll need to figure out in the next few months, but there is one decision we didn’t get to. Today, we’ll dig into this one a little deeper.

DECISION #3 – Picking between Trevon Diggs or DaRon Bland

The fact that the Cowboys have such a small window where both these guys were on the field healthy is a tragedy, but injuries have brought bad luck to this team. Diggs has suffered season-ending knee injuries in each of the last two seasons. And then Bland suffered a stress fracture in his foot in training camp that resulted in him missing the first 10 games of the season.

Soon, the day will arrive when the Cowboys will have to choose which of these players will be a part of their future. Diggs is entering the second year of his five-year, $97 million deal he signed in 2023. On the surface, it looks as if the Cowboys are committed to him regardless, however, that is not completely true. The team was able to get a deal done early with him and in the process, only a third of it was guaranteed. This means the team has some early-exit escape hatches built in. This is important because Diggs just had chondral tissue graft surgery last month. His timetable is uncertain, but he’s expected to miss offseason workouts and parts of training camp. When will he be back on the field and playing at full strength?

The Cowboys have already paid out his guaranteed money and they haven’t restructured a cent, meaning it will be easy for them to get out of his contract at any point during his last few years with the team. If they are not happy with what he is doing on the field, they can simply move on without any huge financial repercussions.

Moving away from Diggs means moving forward with Bland as the team’s new CB1. Bland is in the last year of his contract. If they want to move forward with him, they should try to work in an extension this summer before he hits free agency next offseason. If they let him play out his rookie deal, they’ll either have to let him walk and get a compensatory pick, or franchise tag him while they figure out what they want to do. It’s a slippery slope, and this one may not have an obvious answer, but the Cowboys don’t seem like a team that would be willing to pay top money for two cornerbacks. And in that case, one of them has got to go, but which one?

What they should do…

Debating over which one you’d rather have is almost like splitting hairs. They both are good players, but they both also come with flaws. Picking which one to roll with isn’t as cut and dry as one would think.

Diggs is a pesky corner. He can mirror his man and is a ball-hawking stud. He’s also a risk taker, poor tackler, and lacks the makeup speed to save a touchdown if the receiver gets behind him. And we can’t look past that he’s had two knee injuries in two years, so what type of player he is going forward is far from a guarantee.

Bland has length, excellent closing ability, and outstanding read and anticipation to jump routes. Owning the NFL single-season for interceptions returned for a touchdown pretty much speaks to that. But he also lacks the fluidity to handle great route runners and is susceptible to double moves. He’s better served laying back and letting the receiver come to him.

The contract flexibility they have with Diggs affords the team the luxury to hedge their bet. They should try to negotiate an extension with Bland in a similar fashion they did with Diggs which would result in a five-year deal that’s really a two-year deal with an option for three more. This would buy them a little more time to figure things out. If one fades, the team can move on from them later. If both are playing well, but they don’t want to pay a high price twice, they can trade one away in exchange for some good draft capital that would be more than just a compensatory pick.

What they don’t want to do is bet on the wrong guy or get themselves too financially committed to one guy forcing them to go in that direction. This situation must be handled correctly.