Osa Odighizuwa has yet to set foot on the field as a member of the 49ers, but he’s already looking ahead to the next time he’ll walk through the tunnel of AT&T Stadium… while wearing enemy colors.
The 27-year-old defensive tackle, traded to San Francisco during the offseason after five years in Dallas, admitted this week that when the NFL schedule was released, the game pitting his new team against his former one got extra attention. He stopped just short, though, of calling it an actual revenge game.
“I mean, speaking to the rivalry, bro, this is a game that, for a long time, it’s the game that you’ve got a picture on a dartboard and you’re throwing the knife at the picture,” Odighizuwa said on The Richard Sherman Podcast.
Notably, Odighizuwa didn’t even identify the Cowboys by name or specifically call out the Week 10 matchup, set to be played in the late-afternoon timeslot on Sunday, Nov. 15.
He didn’t have to; Sherman and Odighizuwa both knew exactly which game he was referencing.
“Now I just take down the picture and I put up the other picture,” Odighizuwa continued. “I’m just on the other side of it, but the energy is exactly the same.”
Once a third-round draft pick by the Cowboys, Odighizuwa signed a four-year, $80 million extension with Dallas in March 2024, the first big piece of player business conducted by the team in head coach Brian Schottenheimer’s tenure.
Fifty-three weeks later, he was gone, traded in exchange for another third-round pick that the Cowboys used this spring to select Michigan edge rusher Jaishawn Barham.
While with Dallas, Odighizuwa faced the 49ers four times: twice in the regular season (2023 and 2024) and twice in the playoffs (following the 2021 and 2022 seasons). The Cowboys lost all four of those meetings.
Six months from now, the Cowboys will look to keep their former teammate on the losing end of the historic series.
And give Odighizuwa a reason to keep that picture on his dartboard.
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This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: Former Cowboys DT Osa Odighizuwa has ‘picture on a dartboard’ for this 2026 rivalry game
Reporting by Todd Brock, Cowboys Wire / Cowboys Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
