Dallas’ owner admitted before Monday’s loss to Arizona how important being ‘relevant’ was to him.
Tuesday, the Cowboys executed two trades, including a blockbuster with the Jets for DL Quinnen Williams.
Yet still, the Cowboys remain among the minority of NFL teams that are actually below .500.
Being ‘relevant’ in the parity-laden NFL isn’t a very high bar. Yet if you have to take a crowbar to your organization to achieve that standard, then it will likely be damn near impossible to exceed much more than, well, (temporary?) relevance.
There’s no doubt Jerry Jones would very much like to win his first Super Bowl in 30 years. He’d doubtless be thrilled to play in the NFC championship game for the first time in … 30 years.
Yet winning a fourth ring isn’t necessarily an all-consuming objective for the longtime owner of the Dallas Cowboys, who tipped his hand yet again prior to his team’s Monday night loss to the Arizona Cardinals.
‘The Dallas Cowboys probably have the kind of interest that we have in no small part because we stay out front, and we stay controversial,’ Jones said on Stephen A. Smith’s SiriusXM show.
‘When it gets slow, I stir that (expletive) up. Fact. I just want to be relevant. I just want you to be looking at us.’
And here we are. Staring at the pseudo-relevance.
Eighteen of the NFL’s 32 teams currently stand at .500 or better. Jones’ isn’t one of them. The Cowboys are 3-5-1, good for second place in the sorry NFC East – barely – and 11th place overall in the conference. Dallas is two games behind the Detroit Lions, who currently hold the NFC’s final wild-card spot.
Yet Tuesday, Jones made good on his Monday teases, consummating trades he signaled were coming prior to the Cowboys’ public face plant on ‘Monday Night Football.’ Not 24 hours later, they’d traded for a linebacker (Logan Wilson) who’d just been benched by the Cincinnati Bengals, owners of what is the NFL’s worst defense by orders of magnitude, before obtaining the New York Jets’ Quinnen Williams, a three-time Pro Bowler who’s one of the league’s better defenders … and also one who cost Dallas dearly.
Relevant, huh?
On the one hand, you have to hand it to Jones. Though his team is entering its bye, it’s now positioned to largely dominate the NFL news cycle following the Williams deal – likely for the rest of this week, and maybe for the rest of 2025. Though the Cowboys will be two games under .500 when they return to the field, you won’t be able to avoid them. Dallas is set to embark on a five-week stretch after its week off that will include three prime-time games, a nationally televised matchup with the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles in the 4:25 p.m. ET window on Nov. 23 and a Thanksgiving meeting with … the Kansas City Chiefs, a living, breathing dynasty like the one Jones had decades ago.
But on the other hand?
According to the NFL’s analytics, the Cowboys have a 5% chance of making the playoffs. Wilson – in theory – and Williams are bound to improve a defense that is the league’s worst this side of Cincinnati. But is that really saying much? Are they going to cover Marvin Harrison Jr.? Or A.J. Brown? Are they going to prevent teammate George Pickens from indulging some of his worst on-field habits, as he did Monday night? Is Williams, who turns 28 next month, really going to be a cornerstone here – especially when he’s due $46 million in base salary over the 2026 and ’27 seasons and given his arrival dilutes the organization’s ability to reload the roster in the aftermath of the late-summer trade of pass rusher extraordinaire Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers? For those keeping score, Parsons returned two first-round picks, while Williams cost a Round 1 and Round 2 selection – so that’s an appreciably degraded defense now devoid of most of the Parsons profits that might have eventually replenished it.
And taking on Williams’ salary and pooling it with fat paychecks already taken home by Prescott and wideout CeeDee Lamb, guard Tyler Smith and others further restricts Jones’ ability to add topflight veterans in the future.
Maybe Jones thinks the Cowboys should or must win now, especially considering moves of this magnitude and the forfeiture of so much of the Parsons bounty. Especially given quarterback Dak Prescott is 32. Especially at a time when the NFC – and league at large – doesn’t seem to have an apparent juggernaut.
But the pre-Williams Cowboys couldn’t deal with a Cardinals team, now 3-5 itself, triggered by journeyman backup quarterback Jacoby Brissett and a band of fill-in running backs. They can’t stack up with the Eagles. Or the Rams. Or the Seahawks. Or the Buccaneers. Or the Lions. Or probably Parsons’ Packers even though they could only manage a tie with the Cowboys during his return to Dallas earlier this season.
‘They’re better because they can’t be worse, just having Quinnen Williams on the team,’ said former New York Giants vice president of player personnel Marc Ross, now an NFL Network analyst.
‘I thought the Micah Parsons trade was bad, and you’re making another trade here that is just trying to make up for that. … I don’t think that’s a win for the Cowboys.
‘They can’t rush the passer, and they can’t cover anybody – and I don’t think they can do that even now. … They’re not good enough to compete right now.’
But after Jones’ latest shell game, at least they’re relevant. Maybe even until Christmas.