The Dante Fowler Jr. era in Dallas is officially over—again. After signing a one-year deal worth up to $5 million with the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks, the veteran edge rusher is moving on from the Cowboys for the second time. Fowler’s latest stint in Dallas was his second with the team, following his initial run from 2022 to 2023 and a one-year detour with the Washington Commanders in 2024.

In many ways, Fowler’s 2025 season was both a disappointment and entirely predictable. He was coming off an outlier year with Washington, where he recorded 10.5 sacks—only the second time in his 11-year career he’d topped eight sacks in a season. Still, the Cowboys saw a repeatable performance and signed him to a one-year deal worth double what he made during his first stint in Dallas.

The red flags were there, but the Cowboys looked the other way. They ignored the outlier sack numbers and paid no attention to the static pressure stats. Pressures—a far more stable metric than sacks—have long been considered a better predictor of future performance. And here’s where it gets telling: in his 10.5-sack season of 2024, Fowler generated just 20 total pressures, which is actually below his career average of 21.5 pressures per season. In 2025 with the Cowboys, he once again posted 20 pressures—but this time, those pressures translated into only three sacks. The regression to the mean was inevitable.

For the Cowboys, Fowler’s departure is more than just a roster move—it’s a lesson in player evaluation. Pressure rate remains a far more reliable indicator of future success than sack totals, which can fluctuate wildly from year to year. If Dallas wants to avoid repeating free-agent missteps, they’d be wise to focus on the stable, predictive stats that tell the real story. As for Fowler, he’ll now take his talents to Seattle, looking to prove that his best football is still ahead of him in his 12th NFL season.