The Dallas Cowboys can never make enough big moves. At least that is the sentiment shared by many who are always thirsting for the front office to do a little more. Even with extensive roster remodeling already on their resume recently, it’s never enough. Other teams keep doing stuff, why can’t the Cowboys keep doing stuff?
But let us take a collective breath and think about things for a moment. We are not even a year removed from one of the biggest roster shakeups in the history of this storied franchise.
We are talking about the elephant in the room, or more appropriately, the lion who has left the room, Micah Parsons. Fans have their own opinions on whether that was the right decision, but there’s one part that is blatantly apparent, and that is that Parsons is arguably the most insanely talented player the Cowboys have ever shipped away in the history of the organization. Ever.
Now, some of you Cowboys’ historians in the back are already screaming about the legendary Herschel Walker deal. Yes, the draft haul for Walker was absolute highway robbery. But if we are talking about pure, unadulterated football talent on the day of the deal, it is almost impossible to top Parsons. He was just 26 years old with a ridiculous résumé laced with All-Pro honors. He did not slow down one bit when he packed his bags for Green Bay either, that is, until an unfortunate injury ended his season prematurely.
The reality is that Parsons is still a dominator, while other legends fizzled out fast after leaving the Big D. Take the Walker trade as an example. Walker was not much older than Parsons when Dallas moved him, but his tires were already dangerously bald. He spent three grueling years in the USFL running for the New Jersey Generals before he ever even wore the star. Between Georgia and the USFL, Walker had racked up more career carries than Ezekiel Elliott did during his entire run in Dallas. He didn’t have a whole lot left in the tank and earned exactly zero Pro Bowls after leaving town.
Looking through more trades throughout Cowboys history, you will see the exact same movie play out. Tony Dorsett got shipped to Denver to clear out a crowded backfield for Walker, but he did absolutely nothing for the Broncos. He played just one sad season and barely scratched seven hundred yards. Of course, he was 34 years old at the time and only brought back a conditional fifth-round pick, so that barely even registers as a real trade.
If you go back further, you have the classic crowded quarterback room scenario. Dallas flipped Craig Morton to the New York Giants for a first- and a second-round pick. That top pick eventually turned into future Hall of Fame legend Randy White. Morton was completely expendable because the Cowboys already had Captain America himself, Roger Staubach. Morton was a solid quarterback, but he never made a single Pro Bowl in his entire 18-year career. That was a great trade for the Cowboys.
Outside of those massive names, the list of guys who actually succeeded after leaving Dallas is incredibly short. In fact, if we are looking for players who made Pro Bowls with their new teams, it has only happened in the recent era. We all remember the Amari Cooper trade, which was purely a salary cap dump because he was going to get cut anyway. Cooper did go on to make a Pro Bowl in Cleveland.
Before that, the front office traded a bottom-of-the-roster cornerback named Charvarius Ward. He eventually won a Super Bowl in Kansas City and grabbed an All-Pro nod in San Francisco. Good for him.
And how could we forget the joy many fans felt when the Cowboys finally gave up on the struggling Nahshon Wright and traded him away, only to watch him surprise everyone and put up a Pro Bowl season last year with the Chicago Bears. Darn you, Nahshon!
Despite those successes, it is still hard to bash the front office for making those moves. The logic was sound at the time, and there wasn’t much evidence to suggest that Ward or Wright would turn into good players.
When you really study the history of this franchise, the Cowboys usually win big when they are letting go of a player rather than selling the farm to buy one. Some of us still get nightmares thinking about the absolute disasters of the Joe Galloway and Roy Williams trades. But everyone forgets that even Jimmy Johnson once got completely blinded by love for his former Miami quarterback, Steve Walsh.
To grab Walsh in the supplemental draft, Dallas had to give up its first-round pick for the subsequent draft. Because the Cowboys finished a miserable 1-15 in 1989, that pick wound up being the No. 1 overall selection. That’s a brutal loss. Dallas could have walked out of that legendary draft with both Junior Seau and Emmitt Smith in the first round if they had just kept their hands off Walsh. But no. Jimmy had to do Jimmy things, and the risk-taking oil man, Jerry Jones, wasn’t about to stand in his way at that time. If you’re interested in more details about this pre-dynasty blunder, check out the nice summary one of BTB’s OG’s, Rafael Vela, wrote up over 20 years ago.
When the Cowboys act as the sellers and demand premium draft capital, they turn into absolute bandits. They turn those picks into gold jackets as they did with Walker (Emmitt Smith) and Morton (Randy White). Even the Walsh mistake ended up supporting this point. Jimmy flipped Walsh to New Orleans for a package of picks that turned into Russell Maryland and Erik Williams. Those two both became Pro Bowlers and foundational trench pieces of the ‘90s dynasty.
All of this to say, the blockbuster moves you desperately crave are rarely the moves that actually build a perennial winner. It always feels better to be the receiving end of a beautifully wrapped star player, but you never truly know if the gift exchange will yield you some quality presents in return. The paint has not even dried on the Parsons’ trade, as we are all still sitting directly in the eye of the storm from that deal. So buckle up, put on your raincoat, and ride this thing out. Who knows, that franchise-altering move you so desperately crave might’ve already happened.
