FRISCO, Texas — Around 9:50 p.m. Thursday, with the Dallas Cowboys on the clock at No. 24, the phones were buzzing almost as much as the clock was ticking.
“We had four trades working at the same time,” Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones said.
“Yeah, it was fun,” coach Mike McCarthy, sitting two chairs down, chimed in.
“All of them active trades, all at the same time, on the clock,” Jones said.
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All in all, the Cowboys fielded somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 trade calls Thursday night, with activity ramping up in the 20s, climaxing when they were on the clock at No. 24 and even picking back up when the Cowboys went back on the clock at No. 29, following their trade back from No. 24. The offers ranged from teams looking to trade up from the bottom of the first round to teams looking to trade back into the first round. While so much emphasis for the trade back was placed on the return of an added mid-round pick, the priority in those discussions for the Cowboys was how their first-round selection would shape up.
“The biggest thing was not to go back too far,” Cowboys executive VP Stephen Jones said. “We kind of knew we had a group of players there that we were still going to walk away very fired up, regardless of which player fell to us. We love Tyler (Guyton) but there were others. As long as we walked away with one of those — biggest thing, and we had a lot of different options and opportunities, but the fact that we only had to move back to the 29th pick was a big influence, not to mention you pick up the third-round pick with doing that. It made it even more enticing to pull the trigger.”
In the end, the Cowboys elected to do business with the Detroit Lions, moving back five spots in Round 1 and adding a high third-rounder — No. 73 overall — in this year’s draft. Dallas also gave up a seventh-round pick in 2025, which is an easier hit to take when considering not only the round, but that the Cowboys will be due for a bevy of compensatory picks next year following the exodus of their own free agents this year.
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Although the Cowboys were fielding calls ahead of going on the clock at No. 24, the reason they were able to garner as much interest in that slot was the fall of a defensive player. The Lions traded up and selected cornerback Terrion Arnold out of Alabama but it was perhaps another defensive player falling on the board that caused the uptick in interest from other teams.
“You need something special to happen to be within hitting distance of where we’re picking for the phone to light up,” Jerry Jones said, snapping his fingers. “That happened. The defensive pass rusher was there so, boy, that phone started lighting up because (teams) started to look on how to get up there and get that. It wasn’t the biggest fire sale I’ve ever seen but it was nice enough to effectively get what we hoped would happen, and that is to have some serious opportunity left on the board and yet come down and get us that extra pick.”
Meet our new Guy ➡️ @TylerGuyton14 #CowboysDraft | #DallasCowboys pic.twitter.com/rWh0aCP1DU
— Dallas Cowboys (@dallascowboys) April 26, 2024
By Jerry Jones’ account, that player may have been Missouri’s Darius Robinson. For the Cowboys, Robinson — he went 27th to the Arizona Cardinals — was one of four players they had their eyes set on at No. 24 and hoped to be in position to draft, even after trading down. The others were Arizona tackle Jordan Morgan, who went 25th to the Green Bay Packers, Duke center Graham Barton (26th to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) and Guyton. Even trading back just five picks, things got dicey for the Cowboys as three of those four players flew off the board.
Fortunately for the Cowboys, Guyton, who is now viewed as the left tackle of Dallas’ future, survived the run from No. 25 to 28.
“We had five players that were going to get picked and we had four that we really liked,” Stephen Jones said. “We felt really good about making the trade. Now, it’s tense, waiting. There’s no question that you’re taking some risk there but you’re believing in your board and having patience. Certainly, that paid off for us.”
Of the terms the Cowboys were considering while fielding trade offers, there were a number of factors that came into play. The primary was how far back they’d have to move in the first round. Another one was: Do they look to accumulate quality or quantity? Would they rather have two Day 3 picks or one Day 2? Given the talent they believe the middle of this draft class has, they opted for the latter. At No. 29, they had more offers to compile draft picks but three of their four desired players were already gone from their initial trade. To risk losing Guyton by trading back farther in the first round wasn’t worth it, nor was trading out of the first round and losing the fifth-year option.
The Cowboys had fewer than 15 players with a first-round grade in this draft class, and none of those players remain headed into Day 2. Getting one of their top desired talents was important, but so too was adding a quality pick in the middle of the draft. Thursday night, they accomplished both goals, conducting a tidy bit of business to begin a massive three days in filling roster holes.
(Photo: James Black / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
