Jones later walked back his trade completion chatter on ESPN: “I hope you will appreciate that, since the deadline is tomorrow, details are tomorrow.”
ARLINGTON, Texas — It appears Dallas Cowboys general manager and owner Jerry Jones has jumped the gun a bit.
On Monday, just one day ahead of the NFL trade deadline, Jones appeared on the Stephen A. Smith Show on SiriusXM and announced in no uncertain terms that the Cowboys had made a deal.
“We certainly have made a trade, and we may make a couple more trades before that deadline,” Jones said. “We’ve made one. We possibly could make two more.”
Jones did not disclose with whom the deal was made or which players were involved, but alluded to Dallas receiving a player that could be plugged into the system and immediately address the Cowboys’ “shortcomings.”
That sentiment would seem to imply that the Cowboys are making a deal for a strong defensive player. Despite having the top-ranked offense this season, the Cowboys’ defense has been ranked the worst in the NFL.
However, according to multiple team sources, the trade Jerry spoke on doesn’t exist — at least not yet.
“Not just yet,” Cowboys public relations reps wrote to WFAA when reached out to about a deal. “Possible though.”
Another team source confirmed to WFAA that the Cowboys “haven’t done anything yet.”
Of course, “yet” is the common theme in both of those responses.
Jones, to his credit or to his detriment, only continued to double down on his comments when he appeared on ESPN alongside NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman ahead of the team’s Monday Night Football game against the Arizona Cardinals to announce that AT&T Stadium would host a NHL Stadium Series match featuring the Dallas Stars in 2027. After sharing details on that forthcoming hockey event, Monday Night Countdown host Scott Van Pelt asked Jones to clarify what he’d told Smith earlier in the day.
“Well, I hope you will appreciate that, since the deadline is tomorrow, details are tomorrow,” Jones said with a laugh. “The idea is, are we busy thinking about it, or am I sitting up here thinking about oil and gas, or am I trying to build a team, trying to get our defense ready to go? I’ve taken a little kidding about some of my comments recently about our oil and gas business. But, seriously, this is a time when we have a chance to help the Cowboys, and any time that I can do that, we burn the midnight oil. And there’s a good chance that we’ll have some things to talk about tomorrow.”
In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal about some recent oil and gas investments he’s made, Jones joked about why he was paying so much attention to things not related to football these days.
“There’s $100 billion present value with gas out there,” Jones said in that interview. “That’s why I’m talking to you on the telephone rather than trying to fix our defense with the Dallas Cowboys.”
Either way, all jokes aside, Dallas is in desperate need of a defensive sparkplug, so rumors surrounding their activity heading into the trade deadline are not unfounded.
Now, with Jones continuously fanning the flames on a national stage, Cowboys fans will just have to wait and see what happens in the next 24 hours.