FRISCO, Texas – Let’s start with a little draft day trade primer, seeing this is about the time, just a week away from the NFL Draft, that these questions begin to arise.
No one seems to inquire about the Cowboys just staying put at pick 24 in the first round.
Do you realize that in six of the past eight drafts, going back to 2014, the Cowboys have simply stayed put? One of those other two years, in 2019, they didn’t have a first-round pick, having executed a midseason trade in 2018 with the Raiders for Amari Cooper.
The other year, in 2021, the Cowboys actually traded down from 10 to 12. And as Cowboys COO Stephen Jones said the other day on his radio interview, “We weren’t thinking Micah two weeks away from the draft.”
Yeah, but still thanking their lucky stars the two cornerbacks they had their eye on at that 10th pick, rightfully earned by going 6-10 in 2020, had gone off the board. Shucks, might as well take the top-rated defensive player on our board, one Football Player Micah Parsons. And for their trouble moving down two spots the Cowboys turned Philadelphia’s third-round pick into Chauncey Golston.
And if history is our guidance, the Cowboys haven’t traded up in the first round since 2012, moving from 14th to No. 6 and giving the Rams their second-round choice for that right. The Cowboys picked cornerback Morris Claiborne. The Rams selected defensive tackle Michael Brockers. That was 10 years ago.
And as Jones says when you trade up in the first round, “You’re going to give up a very good football player.”
Goodness knows the Cowboys are really in no position to “give up a very good football player” unless something highly unexpected occurs in the first round next Thursday. Like a player the quality of Dez Bryant in 2010 freefalling his way towards No. 27, the anxiety-laced Cowboys not wanting to take any more chances of missing out on a talented wide receiver, giving New England their third-round pick to move up just three spots for Dez.
And maybe this…