Just three days after the Dallas Cowboys sent four-time Pro Bowl defensive end Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers in a seismic trade, the team has extended All-Pro cornerback DaRon Bland on a four-year, $92 million deal that keeps him in Dallas through the 2029 season.
Bland, 26, was a fifth-round pick out of Fresno State in 2022 and was thrown into a starting role halfway through his rookie season after a season-ending injury to Jourdan Lewis. He finished the season with a team-high five interceptions despite just eight starts at the slot corner position.
One year later, Bland cemented his place among the league’s top cornerbacks with an NFL-high nine interceptions including an NFL record-setting five pick-sixes from the outside corner spot. He was voted as a first-team All-Pro by the Associated Press and finished fifth in Defensive Player of the Year voting.
“The way he has worked and shot onto the scene a couple of years ago,” head coach Brian Schottenheimer said soon after the news broke. “The way he came in here as a rookie and made an immediate impact at nickel, to see him with all of the pick-sixes, I’m just so happy for him and his family.”
In 2024, Bland missed the first 10 games of the season with a fracture in his foot that he suffered in the team’s training camp. Upon his return, he finished the year with 41 tackles and a game-sealing forced fumble late in the win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“He’s got incredible instincts,” Schottenheimer said. “His ability to study the game and his knowledge of the game for a young player are uncanny. The way he can read splits and anticipate routes, that usually happens when you’re older.”
Bland’s $23 million average annual salary makes him the sixth-highest paid cornerback in the NFL behind New York Jets’ Sauce Gardner, Houston Texans’ Derek Stingley Jr., Carolina Panthers’ Jaycee Horn, Pittsburgh Steelers’ Jalen Ramsey and Denver Broncos’ Patrick Surtain II.
It is the second contract extension that has been signed in the 2022 draft class after the team got tight end Jake Ferguson locked in on a four-year extension of his own last month. First-round pick Tyler Smith appears to be next on the docket for the team.
“I think the guy is an All-Pro guard, an incredible talent,” Schottenheimer said. “The power that he possesses is crazy. He’s one of the hardest practice players that we have. That’s one of the things you respect about him...Hopefully, he’s the next one that’s able to get done.”