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FRISCO, Texas — Three weeks away from the 2025 NFL season’s trade deadline, the Dallas Cowboys are at a crossroads in terms of how their football team is playing.

The offense and defense are literally polar opposites of each other: the Cowboys’ offense is third in scoring (29.7 points per game) and first in total yards per game (387.5), but the defense ranks 31st in points (30.7) and last in total yards (411.7) allowed per game.

The 2025 Cowboys (2-3-1) are on track to become NFL’s third team ever with the most offensive yards gained and defensive yards allowed per game alongside the 1955 Chicago Bears (8-4 finish) and the 1985 San Diego Chargers (8-8 record). Those teams missed the playoffs.

Yet, Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones is certainly open to making a trade before the Nov. 4 deadline.

“We have thought all along that if we see a way to improve this year with a trade at the deadline, then we’ll take advantage of it,” Jones said Tuesday. “That’s what we positioned for to start this year — to have ammunition to do things if we have an opportunity. … I don’t have a trade in mind right now at all. If that comes about right now if someone is on the phone calling.”

If there were a trade to be made, Jones would likely look at doing so on the defensive side of the ball to help the aforementioned scoring and total defenses. Dallas is equipped to make a blockbuster deal since the Cowboys are equipped with four first-round picks across the next two draft after trading All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons to Green Bay for Pro Bowl defensive tackle Kenny Clark and two first-rounders.

The last time Jones pulled the trigger on an in-season trade around the deadline and parted with a first-round pick was during the 2018 season. That’s when the Cowboys started 3-4 in their first year without Dez Bryant, the franchise’s all-time leader in receiving touchdowns (73). Following a narrow 20-17 defeat at Washington in Week 7 of that year, the Cowboys parted with their 2019 first-round pick the next day and acquired Pro Bowl wide receiver Amari Cooper from the Raiders. That move sparked Dallas to a 7-2 finish, ending the regular season with a 10-6 record and atop NFC East.

Would Jones consider making a trade of that magnitude in 2025 to help his ailing defense? He was quick to point out that Clark only counts for $3 million on the Cowboys’ 2025 cap sheet this season after being traded over from the Packers a week before the season kicked off.

That puts Dallas in a place where making a deal for 2024 NFL sacks leader and Cincinnati Bengals edge rusher Trey Hendrickson, hypothetically speaking, feasible. Dallas currently has $31.145 million in cap space, which is the NFL’s second-highest figure this season behind only the New England Patriots ($53.653 million), according to OverTheCap.com. Hendrickson’s 2025 cap hit is $25.166 million.

“If there is a trade that would help the defense, we’re in position to make that trade,” Jones said. “I want to remind everybody… one of the great things about our trade that we had with Green Bay is that our tackle [Clark] makes about $22 million a year. He costs us, too. We’re getting a 20-something million-dollar player for $2 million, $3 million right now, and he’s playing about as well as anybody on [our] defense. Why do I bring that up? That alone has increased our flexibility of being able to look at potential trades right whereas you might have had hand cramps before.

“So, we’re in position to look at a trade. That doesn’t mean we’re going to make one. We certainly had in mind when we started the season that we were going to have ammo to be more flexible in terms of what we do with the roster as we move along this year and, of course, as we get into the next couple of years.”

While most of the conversation with Jones was spent addressing the nature of his underachieving defense, he made sure to note the high-level play of both quarterback Dak Prescott, who has thrown for 10 touchdowns and no interceptions in the past three games, and wide receiver George Pickens, who has a receiving touchdown in five consecutive games.

Jones alluded to the potential of getting All-Pro wide receiver CeeDee Lamb (ankle sprain), rookie first-round pick and right guard Tyler Booker (ankle sprain) and All-Pro returner/wide receiver KaVontae Turpin (foot) back in Week 7 for the Cowboys’ game against the Washington Commanders. The team hopes to get all three on the practice field this week and test their potential availability for Sunday, coach Brian Schottenheimer said Monday.

“Our offense is playing at a level that, we can play better, but I’m pretty proud of how we played so far,” Jones said Tuesday. “We do have some serious help on the way, and that’s part of the reason I feel as good as I do, because Dak is playing outstanding.

“Certainly, Pickens is playing outstanding. And we’ve got some other people that are really doing their part that are showing up. I’m going to be pretty general here because I like what we’re doing over there [on offense].”

Another element that Jones, team chief operating officer Stephen Jones and vice president of player personnel Will McClay will factor into their calculus when weighing the possibility of a deadline deal are explosive linebacker DeMarvion Overshown (knee) and rookie third-round pick cornerback Shavon Revel (knee) potentially returning.

Overshown has been working out on the resistance cords with the Cowboys’ rehab group off to the side at practice lately. The linebacker’s availability is a topic for every team personnel meeting when the front office and coaching staff discusses players who are rehabbing injuries. He doesn’t anticipate Overshown returning until at least after the Cowboys’ mid-November Week 10 bye.

“It does add to try to speculate on how Overshown is going to impact this defense,” Jones said. “It’s speculation at best. The same thing with Revel. We hear about him doing things out here that are just amazing, but he hasn’t played in the NFL. You know that’s going to cost you some place if he’s on the field.

“So, that’s part of the nuances that you have to work through. We will weigh what are the likelihood of the players that we’ve got coming back, how they will impact and where that will put this team as opposed to if we should add a player in a trade.”

Will Jones kick off extension talks with WR George Pickens?

Pickens has been everything that Dallas hoped for when it landed the electrifying wide receiver and a 2027 sixth-round pick in early May’s deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers for a 2026 third-rounder and 2027 fifth-rounder. His six receiving touchdowns tie the Detroit Lions’ Amon-Ra St. Brown atop the NFL this season, and Pickens’ 525 receiving yards rank third.

Pickens is having an impact similar to the aforementioned Cooper — Pickens is tied for the most receiving touchdowns (six) in a player’s first six games with the Cowboys since the 1970 AFL/NFL merger, according to CBS Sports research.

Jones concurred, which is why he’s thinking about carving out future cap space for the 24-year-old Pickens next offseason.

“Well, again, I don’t want to sit here, and as you know, that even has a competition to it in its very aspect of it,” Jones said when asked if he would begin contract talks with Pickens. “He is doing more than we could, than we did expect or that we could have expected. What’s really special is he’s a real plus to have around the team. He’s a real plus around his teammates. He’s a great plus around those coaches. Those coaches really think highly of him, and so he’s not only doing it on the field. He’s doing it as a part of the team concept. That’s very important and, in his particular case, should be noted.

“We’ll weigh that. We knew full well that if things really went like we wanted them to go, certainly, we need to think about having some room available if we’re going to pay a second receiver at that level.”

Remorseful about Dak Prescott having a Tony Romo-like career trajectory

A case can be made that no one in the NFL this season is quarterbacking at a higher level than Prescott. He enters Week 7 leading the NFL or ranking in the top five across a multitude of passing statistics despite playing missing Lamb, center Cooper Beebe (ankle sprain) and Booker the past three weeks.

Prescott’s current 71.6% completion rate would rank as the highest in NFL history by a player who also led the league in pass attempts, according to NFL Pro. Prescott leads the NFL with 229 passing attempts entering Week 7.

Completion Percentage

71.6%

4th

Pass Attempts

229

1st

Completions 

164

1st

Pass Yards

1,617

2nd

Pass TD

13

2nd
Passer Rating 104.6 9th

Sack Rate

3.0%

3rd

Completions of 25-Plus Yards

17

1st

Acknowledging Prescott’s high-level play led to Jones getting remorseful about the years in which Dallas contended for Super Bowls with Prescott but ultimately fell short. The Cowboys’ 61.3% regular-season-winning percentage (78-49-1) with Prescott as their starter is the eighth-best rate among 28 quarterbacks to start at least 70 games in the span of his career since 2016.

That’s right in line with his predecessor Tony Romo, who went 78-49 (61.4%) as the Cowboys’ starting quarterback. Romo’s was good for the seventh-best mark among 24 quarterbacks to start at least 70 games in the span of his career as a starter from 2006 through 2015.

“I think Dak is a heck of a quarterback,” Jone said. “All of them [seasons] … were there at times, right around that rim. One of the things that I probably have a sense of remorse is that we didn’t, when those guys were playing quarterback like that, to get one — get a chance to get a Super Bowl.

“… You don’t think that I didn’t jump up a lot of mornings in those years that we’ve had Dak, or we had Romo when they were ready to play and say, ‘Let’s get a Super Bowl.’ It would be done. I didn’t say, ‘Let’s don’t,’ being tongue in cheek.

“What I regret is we haven’t been able to get it done. We have been around the rim a lot. … I don’t hang my hat on teams that are playing well enough to have a shot at it. I think this team has a shot. I think some of those teams did.”