FRISCO, Texas – As the Cowboys look ahead to rebuilding a new linebacker room in 2026, two of their former linebackers from the 2025 season have made decisions on their respective football futures.
On Wednesday, the Bears announced that they signed Jack Sanborn, who spent the 2025 season in Dallas and now returns to Chicago where he spent the first three seasons of his NFL career.
Just minutes later, Logan Wilson, who the Cowboys traded a 2026 seventh-round pick to the Bengals for at the NFL's trade deadline in 2025, announced his retirement on Instagram after six seasons in the league.
Sanborn, a native of Lake Zurich, Illinois, gets his homecoming with the Bears after following his former head coach Matt Eberflus to Dallas when the Cowboys hired him to be their defensive coordinator. He signed a one-year deal with Dallas heading into the 2025 season.
In 2025, Sanborn played in six games for Dallas, starting five, and posted 34 tackles, a tackle for loss and a pass breakup. In Week 5 against the Jets, Sanborn suffered a concussion which caused him to miss Dallas' Week 6 game against the Panthers, and after playing on special teams in Week 7 against the Commanders, he suffered a groin injury that placed him on injured reserve, where he would remain for the remainder of the season.
In part to Sanborn's injury as well as general struggles at the position, the Cowboys acquired Wilson from Cincinnati at the trade deadline, one of two trades Dallas made that day as the team also traded for DT Quinnen Williams from the Jets.
Wilson would go on to play seven games for the Cowboys after the trade, starting in just one. He finished the season with 24 total tackles, a forced fumble and a pass breakup during the season.
On February 20, Dallas waived Wilson, and he finishes his six-year NFL career with 565 tackles, 19 tackles for loss. 5.5 sacks and 11 interceptions.
As things currently stand, the Cowboys currently have only three inside linebackers on the roster in DeMarvion Overshown, Shemar James and Justin Barron. Dallas has yet to make an addition to the room in free agency, but still could do so or look to add via a trade and/or the NFL Draft next month.
