The Dallas Cowboys wrapped up their 2025 season on Sunday and will now turn all of their attention to offseason work in the name of not finding themselves out of the playoffs this time next year. Obviously that is much easier said than done.

This upcoming offseason is one of the most important and critical in recent Cowboys history as they have multiple first-round draft picks for the first time since 2008. With the Cowboys now officially done for the season, we know where they will be picking come the 2026 NFL Draft.

Updated 2026 NFL Draft order

Here are the first 12 picks of the draft, through the Cowboys selection at number 12 overall, courtesy of Tankathon.

If all of this sounds familiar it is because it is… the Cowboys held the 12th overall pick last year and used it to select Tyler Booker. They also used it in 2021 to select Micah Parsons, more on him in a moment, although they picked it up after trading back two spots. For what it’s worth the Detroit Lions held the pick in consecutive seasons beginning the year after and landed Jameson Williams and Jahmyr Gibbs, so hopefully that type of success is what the Cowboys find.

While we know where the Cowboys are picking, it is still unknown exactly where their other first-round pick will land. Dallas holds Green Bay’s selection in the 2026 NFL Draft and the Packers are currently set to visit the Chicago Bears in the Wild Card Round which means we are all rooting for Chicago to take care of business.

Updated rundown of Cowboys Draft Picks

Keep in mind that Dallas has also already dealt away 2026 draft capital as well.

The Cowboys are projected to receive a couple of compensatory picks as well, potentially in the fifth-round, but those are not fully known at this time.

It seems like a match made in urban planning heaven. Most metro areas have an abundance of underperforming retail property, such as half-vacant shopping centers, and a shortage of housing that average Texans can afford. Turn that retail into housing, and voila, two problems solved at once.

But no complicated problem has such an easy fix. The North Texas growth juggernaut means that burgeoning exurbs need additional retail space even as dilapidated strip centers plague core cities and older suburbs. Some homeowners may fear and fight plans for new, higher-density housing near them, even when it replaces obsolete shopping centers.

Yet reinvigorating or repurposing underused commercial property can improve a neighborhood’s quality of life while also adding value to a city’s property tax base. That new revenue is especially important because state lawmakers have been keen to limit homeowners’ property taxes. Responsible city leaders need to grow other parts of the tax base just to keep up with the increasing cost of providing public services and maintaining aging infrastructure.

What North Texas needs is a variety of tactics to address these related issues: streamlined rezoning, public incentives to redevelop infrastructure, increased public education about budget issues, and a greater tolerance for change. Fading retail centers can be revitalized in ways that preserve their original use or transform them into something totally different, such as housing. It just takes determination, money and imagination.

Retail abundance

Dallas-Fort Worth has about 200 million square feet of retail space, and it’s about 95% to 97% occupied, said Steve Zimmerman, managing director of the brokerage group at The Retail Connection. Colliers, a real estate services and investment management firm, reported in August that retail rents here have been rising about 4% annually. Those statistics suggest that retail space isn’t severely overbuilt.

But not all retail centers are full of high-performing, high-value businesses. Aging strip centers tend to attract vape shops, nail salons, pay-day lenders, check-cashers, doughnut shops and vacancies; their capacious parking lots remain mostly empty. Those underutilized properties don’t enhance nearby neighborhoods or the tax base as much as busy, attractive retail centers would.

Last year, the Texas Legislature created a new tool to help redevelop commercial properties. Known as Senate Bill 840, the law forces large cities in urban counties to allow multifamily and mixed-use residential development on commercial, office, warehouse or retail property without a zoning change.

SB 840 is meant to encourage developers to transform bleak, underperforming retail spaces into badly needed housing. For example, it might have prevented the fight over Pepper Square in Far North Dallas.

That shopping center languished while the developer and nearby residents sparred in a bitter and protracted rezoning dispute. It is a prime example of how local government processes and NIMBYism make it hard to redevelop in Dallas.

But implementing the new law has been more complicated than we’d hoped. For starters, some North Texas suburbs reworked their zoning code to try to sidestep the new rules.

Irving, for example, set an eight-story minimum height requirement for new multifamily or mixed-use residential development — much taller than what’s typical in the area. Frisco pulled a different trick. Senate Bill 840 exempts industrial areas, so Frisco changed its zoning code to permit heavy industry in commercial zones.

Market conditions also may be slowing commercial-to-residential redevelopment. Our newsroom colleague, Nick Wooten, reported in November that there is a temporary over-supply of apartments in Dallas, fueled by a construction boom and a stream of remote workers in the post-COVID years.

(Unfortunately, that oversupply hasn’t made rent much cheaper. Even if a lease is relatively inexpensive, there are plenty of added costs, like electricity and Wi-Fi. Plus, building managers often nickel-and-dime residents with mandatory fees for trash collection, parking lot security gates, parcel lockers, pets and on and on.)

The temporary situation doesn’t erase the region’s long-term shortage of lower-cost homes. We need SB 840 to work because we need a larger, more diverse stock of housing, including multifamily and townhomes, across the entire region. With a more generous supply of all types of homes, both rental and owned, housing costs should eventually decline.

More options for faded retail

Senate Bill 840 is only one strategy for remaking forlorn retail properties into something more useful and valuable. Some creative owners, managers and public officials have found ways to maintain a property’s retail orientation while adding unique experiences and features.

Carrollton updated design standards and established a “Retail Rehabilitation Performance Grant Program” to encourage property owners to reinvest in underutilized retail centers. One notable success: Carrollton Town Center, where occupancy had dipped to 20% more than a decade ago, according to a story in PM Magazine. Now it is a bustling, walkable, Asian-focused retail and restaurant destination.

Hillcrest Village in Far North Dallas is part of an entire block of aging retail along Arapaho Road. A public-private partnership transformed a parking lot into the “Hillcrest Village Green,” a 1.5-acre expanse of turf with a playground at one end. Restaurants with oversize patios overlook the city-owned greenspace.

Local developer Monte Anderson, a champion of “incremental redevelopment,” is remaking the Wheatland Plaza shopping center in Duncanville. He’s reworking interior spaces and reclaiming some of the parking lot for food trucks, new landscaping, and eventually, a dozen for-sale townhomes built with Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity.

Cities can speed retail redevelopment with small and large incentive programs. Retail properties typically don’t have the utility infrastructure needed for housing; grants and revolving, low-interest loan funds can help residential developers keep costs down so their end product is more affordable. Elected officials need to help constituents understand why most cities need denser, higher-value redevelopment to keep tax rates lower.

D-FW has matured into a metropolis with a vibrant, diversified economy. To accommodate population growth, cities can’t ignore languishing commercial property, or allow only one type of new housing, or permit property tax bases to stagnate. By tackling all three issues at once, they can lay the foundation for a more prosperous future.

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Nearly 200 people gathered Saturday evening for a “No War With Venezuela” protest in downtown Dallas, mere hours after U.S. President Donald Trump carried out the most assertive American action for regime change since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Following months of secret planning, Trump said Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured early Saturday at their home on a military base.

During a news conference, Trump revealed his plans to exploit the leadership void to “fix” the country’s oil infrastructure and sell “large amounts” of oil to other countries.

Trump said the U.S. would run Venezuela until a transition of power takes place, though it remains unclear how the U.S. would assume control.

In Dallas’ Main Street Garden Park, signs reading “U.S. hands off Venezuela” were met with honks by passing vehicles as participants chanted: “Venezuela isn’t yours, no more coups, no more wars. We know what we’re fighting for, not another endless war.”

“We are gathered here today because injustice has crossed another line,” Zeeshan Hafeez, a Democratic primary candidate for Texas’ Congressional District 33, said as he addressed the crowd. “This is not just about Venezuela. This is not just about Gaza.

“This is about whether America will be ruled by law or force.”

Rick Majumdar, a member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization Dallas, told The Dallas Morning News that the message of Saturday’s collective action was simple: “We don’t want the United States to go to another war for oil.”

“The people of the United States should stand in solidarity with the people of Venezuela, as well as stand against the oppression that is happening to immigrants in this country,” Majumdar said. “Stand in solidarity with both Venezuelans in the United States and those in Venezuela.”

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Maduro and his wife landed Saturday afternoon in New York to face prosecution for a Justice Department indictment accusing them of participating in a narco-terrorism conspiracy. The indictment painted the regime as a “corrupt, illegitimate government” fueled by a drug trafficking operation that flooded the U.S with cocaine.

Lawmakers from both political parties have previously raised both profound reservations and flat-out objections to U.S. attacks on boats suspected of drug smuggling near the Venezuelan coast.

Congress has not specifically authorized the use of military force for such operations in the region, and leaders said they were not notified of the plan to seize Maduro until it was already underway.

“I’m appalled that we broke a law and decided that we can invade a country and capture their leader,” said Cynthia Ball, of Amarillo, at the Dallas protest. “Normal citizens like ourselves can’t do a lot at a governmental level, but if we band together and stay informed, hopefully we can get our city to see what’s happening.”

Other officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, supported the move, explaining the secretive nature was necessary to preserve the operation’s integrity. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, called it a “decisive and justified operation that will protect American lives”

Venezuela’s vice president has demanded the U.S. free Maduro and called him the country’s rightful leader.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.