Cowboys foolishly gambling with 4th round pick trades

When the 2025 NFL Draft gets underway in Green Bay next week, the Dallas Cowboys will be without a fourth-round pick for the second straight year. And they have no one else to blame but themselves for it.

Last year’s fourth-round pick had been traded to the San Francisco 49ers back before the 2023 season began for quarterback Trey Lance.

At the time, Lance had just been demoted to third-string backup, two years after being the third overall pick that the 49ers had traded three first-round picks for.

Perhaps Jerry Jones was looking to duplicate some old Jimmy Johnson energy with the move. Just before the 1992 season, Dallas traded the 49ers a second-and third-round pick for Charles Haley.

That move helped bring three Super Bowl victories in the next four years.

But Haley was a missing piece to a team already in a strong position to contend. Lance was not.

In fact, it seems Lance’s sole purpose for being on the Cowboys’ roster was to be used as leverage in contract negotiations with Dak Prescott.

Prescott ended up being far overpaid as Jones folded like a cheap lawn chair in a light Texas breeze.

The draft pick that was traded away became the 49ers strong safety in his rookie season last year, Malik Mustapha. Lance rode the bench for two seasons and was unimpressive in his only start in the season finale last year.

I bet the Cowboys would have liked to have Mustapha in their defensive backfield last year. Lance, meanwhile, is now on the Los Angeles Chargers roster.

No Lessons Were Learned

You would think the Lance fiasco would have been fresh on Jones’ mind when it came to trading draft picks, especially fourth-rounders.

But he didn’t even make it through the entire 2024 season before repeating the same mistake.

In November, the Cowboys shipped their fourth-round pick of 2025 to Carolina for Jonathan Mingo and a seventh-rounder. At least this time they managed to keep the same number of draft picks.

But again, they appear to have tossed away a fourth-round pick for a dubious return.

Mingo was an early second-round pick of the Panthers in 2023 that the Cowboys had high on their draft board. In roughly a season and a half, he played in 24 games with 19 starts.

Out of 111 targets, he caught 55 passes for 539 yards and failed to score a touchdown. Only 19 of his catches resulted in a first down.

In eight games with the Cowboys last year, he started once and finished with five receptions for 46 yards, no touchdowns, and two first downs on 16 targets.

Keep those stats in mind on the Draft’s Saturday, when the Panthers make the 12th pick of the fourth round, the 114th overall. That player could have been on the Cowboys instead.

Given they missed out on a solid running back last year because they had no fourth-round pick, what area of need will they miss out on this year?

Ghosts Of 4th Rounds Past

Just looking back over the last decade, here are some of the players the Cowboys have drafted in the fourth round:

2016 – QB Dak Prescott

2018 – TE Dalton Schultz

2019 – RB Tony Pollard

2020 – C Tyler Biadasz

2022 – TE Jake Ferguson

That’s five players who quickly became full-time starters, although three have moved on to other teams since then.

Still, all five of them have made significant contributions to the Cowboys since being taken in the fourth round.

The argument isn’t against trading draft picks. Dallas recently made what appears to be a smart move by trading a fifth-round pick to the Patriots for quarterback Joe Milton III.

The move filled a large need, giving the Cowboys a back-up quarterback with starting experience. It also kept the number of their draft picks at 10 total to help address other needs.

But these last two trades involving fourth-rounders were fatally flawed from the beginning.

The front office relied on their scouting reports from both players’ college days and ignored the evidence of what their lying eyes saw from both players on an NFL field.

Dallas needs to make moves, which include draft picks. But they need to be much smarter about it.

Especially when it comes to their fourth-round selections.