​ESPN has kept its leaguewide top-10 rankings rolling, and Friday’s edition focuses on the tight ends. While Cowboys fans may not feel the need to scramble to see where Jake Ferguson stands, there is a notable point about the fifth-year tight end that could be cause for concern as the 2026 season approaches.
Spoiler alert: Ferguson is not listed among the current top 10 tight ends in ESPN’s survey of league executives, coaches, and scouts. That might strike some as surprising given Ferguson’s prominent role in Dallas’s high-powered offense. Last season, the 27-year-old was one of only eight tight ends to reach 100-plus targets in the passing game, finishing with 82 receptions that ranked tied for third across the NFL at the position. With 600 receiving yards, Ferguson surpassed three of the names on ESPN’s tight end list, and his eight receiving touchdowns were third-most among all tight ends that year. The 2025 campaign earned Ferguson his second Pro Bowl nod, which raises the question of what more the league’s evaluators want to see from him.
The answer, according to one unnamed NFC scout, appears to be a tighter grasp on the football. Ferguson does receive an honorable mention in ESPN’s countdown, but this scout highlighted a recurring weakness: fumbles. “He’s really solid all around, high catch volume, tough, competes in the run game. His problem is fumbling. We targeted trying to get the ball loose when we played him,” the scout said. Ferguson fumbled three times last season and four times the year before. Across the past two seasons, he has seven fumbles on 141 receptions, which translates to roughly a 5 percent fumble rate. In other words, about one out of every 20 catches ends with a fumble. If one team is game-planning for that vulnerability, it’s reasonable to assume other teams are aware of it as well.
It’s worth noting that Ferguson isn’t alone in this regard. Wide receiver George Pickens had four fumbles last year on 93 receptions, a rate that’s only marginally better for teams concerned with ball security. Even Dak Prescott’s six fumbles—a relatively average figure for a starting quarterback—contributes to a broader trend the Cowboys would like to reverse moving forward. Dallas head coach Brian Schottenheimer has emphasized ball security as a major teaching point for 2026.
Schottenheimer has made it clear that turnover differential will be a focal point this coming season. “You’ll see a big emphasis on ball security for us,” he said last month during the team’s minicamp. “It disgusts me: minus-nine [the Cowboys’ 2025 turnover differential]. It’s awful. We’ve got to protect the football better on offense; we’ve got to take it away on defense. That’s an area where we need to make a big jump. Last year, we really didn’t spend a lot of time doing ball security circuits.” For the 2026 campaign, he added, the Cowboys offensive coaching staff plans to take a different approach. “We’re teaching guys not only how to protect the football—head, body, tail, clasp it in traffic—but also how to secure it with the outside arm rather than the inside arm.”
In sum, while Ferguson remains a central figure in Dallas’s offense and earned commendable individual milestones, the current top-10 tight ends ranking from ESPN reflects a perceived need for improvement in ball security that could influence how defenses game-plan against him in the near future. The organization’s focus on reducing turnovers is clear, and if Ferguson can curb the fumbles while maintaining his production, his standing among the league’s elite tight ends could rise in the eyes of evaluators during the 2026 season.