The Dallas Cowboys have quietly made a habit of player-for-player trades in recent years. In 2023, they swapped cornerback Kelvin Joseph for Miami’s Noah Igbinoghene.
A year later, they executed another similar deal, sending Nahshon Wright to Minnesota in exchange for Andrew Booth Jr.
While these moves helped the team shuffle depth at the same position, the upcoming 2025 season calls for a different approach.
This time, if the Cowboys want to maximize their roster, they’ll need to look beyond corner-for-corner swaps and target positions of need with surplus talent they can afford to move.
Holes in the Defense
For all the star power the Cowboys boast, their roster is far from flawless.
Cornerback remains a concern, especially with Trevon Diggs returning from injury and DaRon Bland being asked to take on an even heavier role.
Depth behind them is shaky, and relying on unproven or inconsistent players could expose the defense in critical moments.
Equally pressing is the defensive tackle position.
The Cowboys have struggled to anchor the middle of their line for several seasons, and it showed again in their preseason work against the Rams when the defense was gashed up the middle.
Osa Odighizuwa has shown flashes, but the rotation lacks a true difference-maker. To make a legitimate postseason push, Dallas must strengthen its interior defense.
That won’t come from signing a street free agent. It’ll likely take a trade.
Surplus at WR?
One of the few positions where Dallas can deal from a position of strength is wide receiver.
With CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens locked in as starters, and KaVontae Turpin and Jonathan Mingo likely rounding out the top four, the team has plenty of depth.
Jalen Tolbert, entering a contract year, could be an enticing piece to trade.
Tolbert has developed steadily since being drafted, but he hasn’t cracked into a consistent top role.
His value, however, should still hold across the league as a former 3rd round pick.
Teams in need of a reliable WR3 or WR4 could see him as an upgrade, giving Dallas a chance to flip him for a defensive tackle or a rotational corner.
In a league where wide receiver depth is coveted, Tolbert represents one of the Cowboys’ most tradeable assets.
Depth in the Trenches
The offensive line, once a glaring weakness for Dallas, has become an area of relative abundance.
Talents like T.J. Bass and Asim Richards, both versatile young linemen, are fighting for playing time.
With the team’s starters largely entrenched, there’s a scenario where one of these players could be shipped out for defensive reinforcements.
Bass and Richards both carry value because of their versatility.
Bass can move across the interior, while Richards has shown the ability to play both guard and tackle.
Teams struggling with offensive line injuries or thin depth charts could see them as plug-and-play solutions.
For the Cowboys, moving one of them for help at defensive tackle or cornerback would balance the roster without sacrificing the strength of the offensive front.
A Move Must Be Made
The Cowboys have shown a willingness to make smart, low-risk trades in recent years, but if they want to contend deep into 2025, they’ll need to be bolder.
Trading from surplus at wide receiver or offensive line to shore up weaknesses at cornerback and defensive tackle could be the difference between another disappointing playoff exit and a legitimate Super Bowl run.
I don’t think corner is a concern for us!! We have a good group of corners on the roster right now!! Even without Diggs and Revel we still have a good group of corners to start for us!! We still have Bland, Elam and Mukuamu that will be ready to start the season!! And you say Bland is tasked with taking on a bigger role, but I don’t think that’s gonna be the case!! I don’t think they’re gonna have him do more than he’s capable of, and with Elam being the better corner so far in camp, it shows that Bland can’t handle too much responsibility, so I think he’ll just play one spot and that’s it!! But he’s still good enough to play where he’s been playing with Elam on the other side and Mukuamu in the slot!! And I think that’s a good group of corners to start the season with!! And that’s not the only corners we have either!! I don’t wanna jinx it, but it’s looking like Booth is finally playing up to the level he was expected to play when he was drafted!! And we’ll have him as a backup and a couple other decent corners!! And it’ll only get better when Diggs and Revel come back from their injuries!! And when that happens, we’re gonna have at least 2 corners that are good enough to be starters sitting on the bench, so it wouldn’t make any sense to trade for more corners, just to have them sit on the bench and be inactive for most of the season!! So I think we should just keep the corner group the way it is!! If Diggs and Revel had to miss the whole season, I would agree that we should trade for more corner help, but they’re not gonna miss the whole season, and will only miss maybe a game or 2, so I don’t think we should add anymore help to that group!!
And as far as the DT position goes, we could use a good run stuffer!! We wouldn’t need the help if these defensive coordinators would stop messing with Mazi every year!! If they would just let him stay at the weight he was when he was in college and when he was drafted, I think Mazi would be a really good run stopping DT right now!! But these defensive coordinators seem to think it’s better to make him lose weight and play a different style than what he’s used to playing, and what he’s good at!! Zimmer was the only defensive coordinator that was smart enough to let Mazi play at his normal weight, and it started to show later in the season!! And it would’ve showed a lot sooner if Mazi didn’t have to gain all that weight back and get used to it again!! And now Eberflus made Mazi lose weight again, and it’s just not good for a player to go through!! It’s bad enough he’s had to go through 3 different defensive coordinators in as many years, but he also had to change his weight every year too!! He went from playing as his normal weight in college, to being drafted and having Dan Quinn make him lose weight, then Mike Zimmer comes in and makes him gain the weight back and now Eberflus made him lose weight again!! That’s a lot of changes for a player to go through in just his first 3 years in the NFL!! Eberflus didn’t make Mazi lose as much weight as Dan Quinn did, I think Mazi was under 300 by the time Quinn was done with him, Eberflus had him drop to about 300 even, but Mazi was 330 or 340 in college, so he’s still 30 or 40 pounds lighter than what he’s used to playing at, and that’s a big difference, and it makes a big difference when it comes DTs taking on double teams and shedding blocks to stop the RB!! If it was any other position, that 30 or 40 pounds would make a difference on what position the player is supposed to be playing at!! If your 270 pounds and play DE and the defensive coordinator makes you lose 30 or 40 pounds, chances are, your not a DE anymore, your gonna be a LB!! And if your a LB playing at 230 or 240 pounds, and the defensive coordinator makes you lose 30 or 40 pounds, then your definitely not a LB anymore, and chances are your a safety or a corner!! And if they played those positions after losing all that weight, it just won’t work!! It’s no different for Mazi…. He was a 1 tech DT when he weighed 330 or 340, and making him lose 30 or 40 pounds, means he’s not a 1 tech DT anymore, he’s more like a 3 tech playing the 1 tech position…. It’s just not gonna work!! And all the blame gets thrown at the player, when in reality, it’s the defensive coordinators that keep making him change his weight that are to blame for it not working!! That’s just how I feel about it!!
Another thing I wanted to add to my long comment was that I don’t understand why they’re doing all that changing to Mazi Smith like that!! He was drafted because of the player he was in college, which means he should stay at the same weight he was in college!! And he was drafted in the 1st round, so why experiment with such a high draft pick!? Jay Toia was drafted in the 7th round and played the same position, so why not make him lose weight and experiment with him since he was a late round draft pick and use the player drafted with the 1st round draft pick as the player he was drafted to be!! It don’t make any sense!! Making your 1st round drafted player go through all these changes isn’t doing anything but making the coaches look bad for making the changes and making the player look like a bust because he can’t get going because he has to keep changing every year!! But if they make those changes to a player drafted in the 7th round, it won’t look as bad, because most players drafted in the 7th round rarely make a team anyways!! So to me it makes more sense to play the 1st round player how he’s used to playing, and make the changes to the 7th round player!! Idk, maybe it’s something the coaches see in the player!! But either way, I doubt I’ll ever understand it!!
Until Dallas Cowboys get this team above average on both side of the ball plus strong enough on second and third string we not be the team we want to be. Yes if this offensive line does well the first string offense could be great. But if the defense can’t stop the running game we only going to be a average team. Out scoring team doesn’t make you a
great team. Go back in see how many title the San Diego Chargers won when they had that super great offense. So until they get defense correct I am not believing that we are close to a title. We really help of a guy like Christian Wilkins. That would be huge for this defense. Because the pre-season has shown us no one we have showed us they will step up and stop the run game!! In have pray the Cornerback get healthy as soon as possible.
a Dallas Cowboys fan, since the the Cowboys have too, too many holes and not enough talent so it doesn’t shock and surprise blame that on Jerry Jones