The Dallas Cowboys will be without veteran tight end and special teams ace Princeton Fant this season after he suffered a devastating injury at Monday’s practice.
“Tight end Princeton Fant suffered a torn ACL, per Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer,” Cowboys reporter Clarence Hill wrote on his official X account on Tuesday. “He will have surgery in the coming weeks and will miss the season.”
Fant, 6-foot-2 and 243 pounds, has been with the Cowboys since making the roster as an undrafted free agent out of the University of Tennessee in 2023.
“Fant was an undrafted free agent of the Cowboys back in 2023,” Heavy’s Anthony Miller wrote on Monday. “He has appeared in 11 regular-season NFL games over the last three years, racking up 2 tackles, each coming in the last two seasons. During last year’s preseason, he caught two passes for 40 yards, with one going for 33 yards. Over the years, Fant has played more special teams than offense. He has taken 14 total snaps on offense, all coming in 2024. In three years, he has 189 snaps on special teams.”
The Cowboys are set at the top of the depth chart at tight end with $50 million Pro Bowler Jake Ferguson, but beyond that it’s kind of a toss-up.
“Princeton Fant went down Monday with a leg injury in Oxnard,” Cowboys fan Brian Crocker wrote on his official X account. “Depth chart at tight end just got interesting. Listen — camp injuries happen every year. That’s not the story. The story is what Dallas does next. Behind Jake Ferguson, this room was already thin on proven bodies. Now watch how the front office responds. That’s the tell.”
Cowboys Have 6-foot-7, 270-Pound TE2 Option
The Athletic’s Jon Machota singled out 6-foot-7, 270-pound 3rd-year Dallas tight end Brevyn Spann-Ford as a player with an opening to make an impact this season.
“This is considered to be a good tight end draft,” Machota wrote in March. “However, the Cowboys aren’t expected to go in that direction. It would not be a surprise to see them enter the season with this group. Spann-Ford is the most intriguing. He seems to have just scratched the surface with his potential as a blocker and pass catcher.”
The Cowboys, in fact, did not take a tight end in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Brevyn Spann-Ford Could Represent Huge ROI
The defense-needy Cowboys not having to spend a 2026 draft pick on a tight end because of the confidence they have in Spann-Ford is significant for several reasons.
First, the Cowboys needed to use as many picks as they could in the draft to improve their defense — as evidenced by using both of their 1st-round picks on that side of the ball with slot cornerback Caleb Downs (No. 11 overall) and edge rusher Malachi Lawrence (No. 23 overall).
Second, Spann-Ford isn’t getting paid very much, in relative terms. He’s only scheduled to make $1.075 million in 2026. So the return on investment with him is pretty stark if he just does what he’s been doing the last few years.
It’s kind of hard to believe now that Spann-Ford wasn’t selected in the 2024 NFL draft. Not only did he have 90 receptions for 1,032 yards and 5 touchdowns over his final 3 seasons at the University of Minnesota, he also played in the Senior Bowl and ran the 40-yard dash in an impressive 4.77 seconds at the NFL scouting combine.
“I’ll never forget this feeling,” Spann-Ford wrote on his official X account after he went undrafted. “Right back to work.”
Cowboys Share Devastating Injury News on Versatile Tight End