{"id":769284,"date":"2026-02-22T16:26:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T16:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/769284\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T16:26:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T16:26:24","slug":"dallas-cowboys-2026-free-agent-profile-defensive-end-sam-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/769284\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Cowboys 2026 free agent profile: Defensive end Sam Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Dallas Cowboys<\/a> have 21 players (UFA\/RFA) who will officially hit the open market in a little less than a month. Today, we continue our series examining each of the Cowboys\u2019 impending free agents, reviewing their 2025 campaign and predicting what will be next for each player.<\/p>\n

We continue our free agent profile series by taking a look at our fourth defensive player, Sam Williams.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Getty Images<\/p>\n

2025 Regular Season Stats: 17G, 474 Defensive Snaps, 270 Pass Rush Snaps, 25 Tackles, 24 Total Pressures, 20 QB Hurries, 7 TFL, 3 QB Hits, 1.0 Sacks<\/p>\n

Year Review: 2025 was a big year for 26-year-old Sam Williams. After showing some promise during his first two seasons in Dallas, Williams tore his ACL during 2024 training camp, forcing him to miss the entirety of the season.<\/p>\n

Back healthy, expectations were high for the former second-round pick, and the Cowboys were hoping Williams could be a key contributor in their pass rush group. Unfortunately, Williams put together an extremely disappointing 2025 campaign, totaling career lows in quarterback hits and sacks.<\/p>\n

Despite playing the most pass-rush snaps (270) of his career, Williams totaled just 24 pressures, the same amount he recorded in 77 fewer snaps back in 2023.<\/p>\n

Consistency has always been an issue for the former Ole Miss Rebel, and that remained true in 2025. After starting the year off hot, recording 15 total pressures in Dallas\u2019 first six games, the 26-year-old recorded just 9 in the final 11 games of the regular season.<\/p>\n

By season\u2019s end, Williams poor performance resulted in a decreased role in Dallas\u2019 defense. In four of Dallas\u2019 final six games, Williams recorded 23 or fewer defensive snaps, including recording fewer than 10 pass rush snaps three times.<\/p>\n

All in all, 2025 was a disastrous year for the talented pass rusher. Williams will enter free agency with a very unclear long-term future.<\/p>\n

Free Agency Outlook: Even after such a down year, Williams will hit the open market at just 27 years old (he turns 27 on March 31st), which means teams could still be optimistic about his long-term future. While he never lived up to the hype he had as a second-round pick, Williams is still a talented athlete who showed some serious promise during his first two years in the league.<\/p>\n

Spotrac<\/a> projects the pass-rusher to earn a one-year, $2.3M deal, which seems like fair value considering how many question marks surround him. It would be shocking if a team were willing to offer Williams a multi-year deal, so the 27-year-old will most likely have to bet on himself and attempt to rebuild his value next season.<\/p>\n

Cowboys Verdict: With the lack of proven pass rushers on their roster moving forward, if Williams had shown any type of promise last season, it would have seemed reasonable that Dallas would have attempted to sign him to a multi-year deal. After how disappointing a season he had, that likely won\u2019t be the case.<\/p>\n

If new defensive coordinator Christian Parker sees Williams as a scheme-fit, the Cowboys potentially could be interested in bringing him back on the cheap, but the more realistic option seems to be both sides going their separate ways.<\/p>\n

Prediction: Sam Williams signs a one-year $2.5M deal with the Washington Commanders.<\/p>\n

If you were the GM, what would you do about Sam Williams this offseason?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dallas Cowboys have 21 players (UFA\/RFA) who will officially hit the open market in a little less…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":769285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2066],"tags":[230,229,257,5355,2461,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-769284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-cowboys","8":"tag-cowboys","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-cowboys","11":"tag-dallas-cowboys-free-agency","12":"tag-dallascowboys","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116115224081805090","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=769284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/769284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/769285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=769284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=769284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=769284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}