Marist Liufau broke his left forearm making a tackle in the first quarter of Friday's preseason finale against the Saints, and the Cowboys are already scheduling surgery for as early as Monday. Adam Schefter broke the news, with Todd Archer following up on the medical details.
Cowboys outside linebacker Marist Liufau is scheduled to have surgery as early as Monday on a fractured left forearm he suffered in Friday’s preseason finale against the Saints. More via @toddarcher: t.co/5yNLW0abyM
The timing could not be worse. Dallas has to get its 53-man roster down by Sunday, and now they're doing it without knowing exactly how long Liufau will be out. Coach Brian Schottenheimer has said he'll miss "some weeks," and the team is reportedly considering an injured reserve stint with a designation to return, which would sideline him for at least the first 4 games of the season no matter what.
It's a tough break, literally, for a guy who quietly turned himself into one of the most valuable role players on the roster. A 3rd-round pick out of Notre Dame in the 2024 draft, Liufau has appeared in all 34 games of his career, but his job description changed dramatically last year. His defensive snaps dropped from 521 as a rookie to 202 in 2025, while his special teams workload exploded from 35% to 75% of snaps, 361 total. This offseason he was also being moved from inside to outside linebacker under new defensive coordinator Christian Parker, adding another wrinkle to his 2026 projection.
That special teams value is exactly why this injury stings for Dallas beyond the roster math. Schottenheimer put it bluntly: "Losing Marist as a football player is tough," pointing to the way he "plays the game with violence." Losing a core-4 special teams contributor right before cutdown day forces the Cowboys to either carry a hurt player on the initial 53 or find a replacement fast, all while hoping the break heals clean.
There's at least a sliver of good news buried in the bad. The injury isn't considered season-ending, and depending on how surgery goes, Liufau could be back well before the calendar flips to December. Either way, Dallas now has to make its final roster decisions with a hole at a spot that quietly does a lot of unheralded work on Sundays.