{"id":786660,"date":"2026-03-02T13:05:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T13:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/786660\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T13:05:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T13:05:16","slug":"cowboys-donovan-ezeiruaku-undergoes-surgery-expected-to-miss-most-offseason-activities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/786660\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowboys\u2019 Donovan Ezeiruaku undergoes surgery, expected to miss most offseason activities"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cowboys<\/a> have high hopes for a second-season jump from outside linebacker Donovan Ezeiruaku. That won\u2019t include a completely healthy off-season, however.<\/p>\n

Ezeiruaku recently had labrum surgery on his hip, multiple people familiar with the situation said. He\u2019s expected to miss most of the team\u2019s offseason activity, but he\u2019s expected to be ready for training camp in late July.<\/p>\n

Ezeiruaku was selected by the Cowboys in the second round<\/a> of the 2025 NFL Draft. He was an All-American during his final season at Boston College. He was the leader in sacks among Division I his final season in college (16.5).<\/p>\n

Ezeiruaku finished his rookie season with 40 tackles, two sacks and a forced fumble. While the sack production wasn\u2019t as high as some expected, Ezeiruaku did impress with his run defense ability. He had nine tackles for loss in his rookie season. One of those came impressively against Detroit Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs, one of the fastest and quickest players in the league with the ball in his hands.<\/p>\n

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Ezeiruaku will not only deal with hip surgery recovery, but he\u2019ll also deal with a position change this offseason. The Cowboys plan to convert Ezeiruaku to an outside linebacker in new defensive coordinator Christian Parker\u2019s 3-4 scheme.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel really, really good about Eze and what he\u2019s capable of,\u201d Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer said from the combine. \u201cYou actually saw him do those things that we see. Remember, these outside linebackers for us, the first thing that they\u2019re gonna do is number one, set the edge of the running game. Number two, they\u2019re gonna affect the damn quarterback. And then occasionally, they\u2019ll drop. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe really good ones, you don\u2019t drop them very often, but you do it a little bit, and so what you want to see with guys like that, which we saw this year with Donovan, was when they drop, are they comfortable? Do they have movement skills? You see them, they look like a fish out of water? And all those answers for him are very, very positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cowboys could have some change with their outside linebacker group this offseason. They\u2019re expected to let free agent pass rusher Jadeveon Clowney hit the open market<\/a>. They also moved linebacker Marist Liufau to outside linebacker in Parker\u2019s scheme. Sam Williams and Dante Fowler are free agents. James Houston is also back on the roster. The Cowboys are also expected to actively pursue another outside linebacker, both in free agency and the draft.<\/p>\n

NFL teams with returning head coaches, like the Cowboys, can begin off-season workout programs on April 20. The Cowboys haven\u2019t set an exact date for their training camp in Oxnard, Calif., but it\u2019s expected to happen in late July. We\u2019ll see if Ezeiruaku will be healthy enough by then to fully participate.<\/p>\n

Twitter\/X: @JoeJHoyt<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Toledo<\/a>Joseph Hoyt\u2019s 2026 mock draft 2.0: Combine standouts could shuffle things up for Cowboys<\/a><\/p>\n

How much did the NFL Scouting Combine change our thoughts on what teams might do?<\/p>\n

\"Ohio<\/a>What we learned from the NFL combine, including good and bad draft news for Cowboys<\/a><\/p>\n

Dallas has many holes to fill on defense, and plenty of potential fixes were on display in Indianapolis.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>The Dallas Morning News extends top 10 streak in Associated Press Sports Editors contest<\/a><\/p>\n

SportsDay was among eight newspapers in the largest circulation category to earn an APSE Triple Crown.<\/p>\n

Find more Cowboys coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cowboys have high hopes for a second-season jump from outside linebacker Donovan Ezeiruaku. That won\u2019t include a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":786661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2066],"tags":[2886,230,229,257,2461,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-786660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-cowboys","8":"tag-brian-schottenheimer","9":"tag-cowboys","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-cowboys","12":"tag-dallascowboys","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116159730808375784","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786660","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=786660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}