Jerry Jones signals potential all-in trade deadline for Cowboys

Leading up to the trade deadline, Jerry Jones is getting the hopes up of every Dallas Cowboys fan. 

Every single team in the NFL right now — including the Dallas Cowboys — should be picking up the phone to see what they can do to improve their team in advance of the 2022 NFL Trade Deadline. If you do nothing, you better be mighty confident that there were no good options to upgrade available, or mighty confident in what you already have on-roster.

For what it’s worth, the Cowboys have a right to be confident. At 6-2, they’ve weathered the storm of a Dak Prescott injury that had them turning to Cooper Rush to start five games this season. He impressively won four of them, which not many expected.

According to the Fort-Worth Star Telegram, Jerry Jones is very open to the idea of trading:

"“If I have the chance to do something that can be interpreted as a real meat-on-the-bone going for it then I will do it,” he added. “I feel that good about our chances. I will do that. I will give up some future currency to go for it.”"

Jones, in the same conversation, alluded to the Cowboys signing Deion Sanders to a, “pretty stacked deck,” that helped them secure Super Bowl XXX.

Cowboys have some areas they could fortify

The Cowboys are good, but they could definitely improve. They average 22.9 points per game, middle of the road. They’re 15th in net yards per passing attempt and 14th in yards per rushing attempt. They’re very good, but definitely not elite at anything on the offensive side.

Some of those numbers, of course, are influenced by the fact that they had a backup QB running the show for over a month.

Defense is another story, the team has been pretty darn good on that side, allowing the third-fewest passing yards and fourth-fewest rushing touchdowns.

One area that has been sore since the season began is the offensive line. The Cowboys allow a greater than 20% pressure per dropback percentage, the 11th-highest in the league. The 2.0 seconds of pocket time the Cowboys have provided for their QBs is the fourth-smallest window any team has in the league to make a throw, which explains why they’re 27th in passing yards. Such a trade wouldn’t be as sexy as adding Deion Sanders mid-season, but it would be impactful if they could find a proven OL veteran on a losing team looking to secure draft picks.

What moves might they make? Wide receiver Brandin Cooks has been floated as an option (subscription required), one that doesn’t fix the aforementioned offensive line issues but does give another option for Prescott to up the passing yards.

Maybe they find a way to offload Ezekiel Elliott.

Who knows what way this goes, but it’ll be interesting as ever to see if Jerry Jones is just blowing smoke or truly serious about contending.