The Dallas Cowboys are bringing two defensive backs up from the practice squad for Sunday’s Week 4 trip to Houston, elevating cornerback Reddy Steward and safety Juanyeh Thomas as injuries continue to thin the secondary.
The moves, first reported by insider Jon Machota, are standard practice-squad elevations, which let a player dress for one game without a permanent roster spot.
For Dallas, they are less about depth charts than about having enough healthy bodies to line up against the Texans.
Through three weeks, the secondary has been a revolving door: cornerback Cobie Durant is still working back from a hamstring injury that kept him out last week, and the safety group has been hit harder still.
Malik Hooker is managing a forearm fracture, P.J. Locke is on injured reserve with a foot injury, and Jalen Thompson landed on injured reserve after a hamstring strain that is expected to cost him several weeks. That has left Markquese Bell and Alijah Clark as the primary options at the position heading into the weekend.
Steward is the more familiar name in the current rotation. The 25-year-old from Troy went undrafted in 2024, spent a brief spell with the Bears — one game, one tackle — and was claimed by Dallas after Minnesota waived him off a futures deal.
He became a regular last season, appearing in all 17 games with five starts and finishing with 63 tackles, 1.5 sacks, five tackles for loss, three passes defensed, and a forced fumble. Undersized at 5-foot-11 and 178 pounds, he earned a reputation as a willing tackler who could hold up in coverage when the starter board thinned.
This will be his second elevation in as many weeks; he was called up before the loss in Brazil after Durant was ruled out, and he has one tackle in his only 2026 appearance so far. With Durant still sidelined, Steward is again the next corner in line.
Thomas is the reunion. The Georgia Tech product joined Dallas as an undrafted free agent in 2022 and spent the next three seasons on the active roster, playing 36 games with four starts.
He totaled 62 tackles, five passes defensed, and a forced fumble, and he was used heavily on special teams, including a kick-return touchdown in 2024.
Dallas did not tender him as a restricted free agent, and he signed a one-year deal with the Colts in March before being released in August. He worked out for the Cowboys late last month and was signed to the practice squad within days of Thompson’s injury.
Now, barely a week later, he is being elevated and could see meaningful snaps if Hooker is limited or held out.
Neither move solves the larger problem. Elevations expire after the game, and Dallas is still short of the five defensive backs who opened the season as starters.
What the promotions do provide is a known quantity at corner and a veteran safety who already understands the building, at a moment when the Cowboys cannot afford another empty chair in the secondary.
