Fresh off of getting embarrassed at home by the Cardinals, the Dallas Cowboys have been one of the more aggressive teams at the NFL Trade Deadline. First, it was a high-upside, low-cost swing on Logan Wilson, but then Jerry Jones readied his magnum opus.
Seeing the ongoing New York Jets fire sale after the Sauce Gardner trade, the Cowboys then took another star from the Jets defense, Quinnen Williams, sending New York a 2027 first-round pick, 2026 second-round pick, and former first-round pick Mazi Smith. And everything about the trade makes the months-old Micah Parsons deal look that much worse.
When the Cowboys traded Parsons, the return that they got from Green Bay was shocking. Even if the all-world edge rusher needed a new deal, getting two first-round picks and Kenny Clark felt like chump change. But Jones and the Dallas front office sold Clark as one of the linchpins of the trade return. They wanted to help improve the run defense with a veteran, and sold Clark as being that and, thus, why the Cowboys didn't get more draft capital from Green Bay for Parsons.
Instead, Clark has been the worst run defender of anyone on the Cowboys who's played more than 100 snaps. And now the Dallas was forced to make another move to help reinforce the defensive line. Williams is obviously a substantially better player, make no mistake. However, if the reason to make a move for Williams is because Clark isn't cutting it — and he now seems likely to be let go after this season — that makes the Parsons trade somehow even more egregious of a whiff.
Dallas had the luxury, even with a return from the Packers I wasn't happy with, of two first-round picks in each of the next two drafts. Now, that's not the case in 2027, and they don't have a second- or third-round pick in 2026. Had they read the Parsons trade better, they would've left Clark in Green Bay and gotten more capital. Now, they're having to spend some of those draft picks in order to make up for the shortcomings of the Parsons trade.
And if any of this sounds like I'm unhappy about Quinnen Williams now being on the Cowboys, that couldn't be further from the truth.
The Quinnen Williams trade gets the Cowboys a phenomenal player
Dallas got a stud in the Williams trade, beyond a shadow of a doubt. The former first-round pick is the type of force that the Cowboys have been looking for over the past several years now. PFF made the point succinctly, noting that he's one of just two defensive tackles since 2022 that has a pass rush grade and a run defense grade of 85 or better.
While Williams has taken a step back this season specifically as a pass rusher, at 28 years old, that obviously feels like more of a Jets problem — especially considering the fact that he remains one of the elite interior run defenders in the NFL.
Better than all of that for the Cowboys, this isn't a one-year move. Williams is under contract through the 2027 season, meaning that he'll be a cornerstone on the Dallas defensive line for the next 2.5 seasons. Sure, it could be a move that helps push this team at least closer to a playoff spot given how abysmal the defense has been this season, but this is the type of long-term move that does make sense for this franchise in its current state.
My issues aren't with Williams and the Cowboys now having him in tow — they remain with Jones and his process. It's never good, and far too often, it seems like even the good moves don't have the best interest of the franchise's future in mind.
Jerry Jones rarely has the betterment of the Cowboys in mind
In the case of the Parsons trade, it can only be called a battle of egos that Jones feels like he won by shipping the star edge rusher out rather than paying him the record-setting deal that he clearly deserved. He did so to win a power struggle, because in no way is getting rid of maybe the NFL's best pass rusher helping the Cowboys. And to make that worse, just to say he won the power struggle, Jones got piss-poor value in return for the Packers.
And while the Williams trade nets Dallas a great player, the fact of the matter is that they did so while likely overpaying — Williams wanted out of New York and the Cowboys were his preferred destination, meaning that Jones should have had leverage in the deal — at a time when there is a good argument that he and the team shouldn't have been buying in the first place.
Sitting at 3-5-1 after the loss to Arizona on Monday Night Football in Week 9, the chances of the Cowboys making it to the postseason are slim. They likely need to go 6-2, at best, to make it, and even adding Williams doesn't accomplish that.
While Williams is a piece for now to try and make any type of run, but also for the future, it feels like Jones was simply trying to shake things up and keep the Cowboys relevant. It's someone making a spectacle for the sake of being seen, not because that spectacle is something that he truly believes in. We've seen that too many times from the owner for that to not be the case.
I'm excited to have Quinnen Williams on the Cowboys. He instantly makes the defense better, and should for years to come. But how things transpired to get us to this point is just more damning fodder to make Jones look like the worst owner in sports. He's a showman who is, ironically, delivering a frustratingly unwatchable show on the field with Dallas because he cares more about the limelight than the consequences of his actions.