Stephen Jones Sends Bold Message on Cowboys’ Trade Deadline Plans
The Dallas Cowboys are all in on the 2025 NFL season. But they’ll also consider moving players off their roster to address areas of need.
Stephen Jones, the Cowboys executive vice president and CEO, addressed why the Cowboys would be considered both buyers and sellers ahead of the NFL Trade Deadline on Tuesday.
The Cowboys (3-4-1) are in second place in the NFC East and sit 2.5 games behind the first-place Philadelphia Eagles. They’re just 1.5 games back of the San Francisco 49ers for the final NFC playoff spot.
Dallas will host the Arizona Cardinals (2-5) on Monday Night Football mere hours before the 4 p.m. ET deadline.
Stephen Jones: ‘Sometimes Player For Player [Trades] Can Be Very Interesting’
The Cowboys have one of the best offenses in the NFL. They rank first in the NFL in passing-yards per game (263.8), second in yards per game (384.1) and points per game (30.8).
Yet, Dallas is middling due to its woeful defense. The Cowboys are 31st in the NFL in yards-against per game (404.6) and points-against per game (31.3) and have allowed at least 30 points in five of their eight games this season.
So Jones knows the Cowboys can use their strength on offense to potentially acquire defensive reinforcements.
“I think there’s a lot of things that go into us improving as a defense,” Jones told KTFM on Thursday. “If you can find a player that upgrades you, as I’ve always said, we’re always looking for that every year. Whether it’s by trade or whether it’s a player acquisition, it comes by a lot of shapes, forms and fashions.”
Cowboys fans may be incensed at the team’s scuffling defense, since the blockbuster Micah Parsons trade sapped the team of one of its most talented players. Still, according to Jones, there are deals to be made to improve.
“We have areas where we have depth, and sometimes player-for-player [trades] can be very interesting to us,” Jones said. “We’re also in consideration for giving up a player for us getting a pick and vice versa. It goes all ways.”
The Dallas Cowboys’ Game Against Arizona Is ‘A Big, Big Game’
Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray has never lost at AT&T Stadium, and Arizona has won three straight against Dallas dating back to 2020.
“What an amazing high-school career he had,” Jones said of Murray, who won three straight state championships while playing at Allen High School and also having a standout baseball career as well. “He’s just a competitor and a winner, and that’s our goal, to put that streak to an end. But I’m sure he’s going to have his competitive juices flowing coming back home to where all he won all those championships.”
Yet, the Cardinals have been struggling with five straight losses despite their minus-1 point differential. If the Cowboys have any illusions of making the playoffs in the much-improved NFC, Jones knows they’ll need to win at home — where they are 2-0-1 despite averaging 33 points per game.
“It’d be huge for us to get a win,” Jones said. “It’s a big, big game. I know it’s a big game for the Cardinals, but it’s a huge game for us as well.”
Lightning back to winning ways but realize there’s still much to prove
Winning breeds confidence, and it’s clear the Lightning’s four-game streak has them feeling a lot better about themselves.
A week ago, they were sitting in the Eastern Conference cellar with just four points in their first seven games. Before Friday’s games, they were just percentage points out of a playoff spot and only four points behind the Atlantic Division leaders.
They put their early season struggles in the past with wins over quality Western Conference opponents Anaheim, Vegas and Dallas, all by one goal and two in overtime. And it seems they aren’t taking their success for granted, realizing it took this winning streak just to get them above .500.
“I think it’s just that you can’t be satisfied,” center Brayden Point said. “We had a rough start and we’ve won some in a row here, but it’s not like we’re out of the woods yet by any means. It’s still early in the season, but it’s just continuing to build and not be satisfied with the little stretch we had.”
The Lightning (5-4-2) will board a plane Saturday and head to Salt Lake City for the start of a challenging three-game, five-day trip to Utah, Colorado and Vegas.
“We’ve got to hit the road and continue to build on this,” left wing Brandon Hagel said after Thursday’s 2-1 overtime win over the Stars. “Obviously, yeah, it’s four, but it doesn’t stop here. It’s just one day at a time and a couple of good days of practice and hit the road and go be some road warriors.”
After Thursday’s win, coach Jon Cooper called his team’s struggles “water under the bridge,” suggesting for the second time this week that their preseason might have played a role in their slow start. The Lightning’s regulars didn’t get much playing time together, and those who were dealing with physical issues rested up for the opener.
Playing the Panthers in the last three exhibition games, didn’t help, either, especially when the Lightning’s second-to-last game became a glorified fistfight on ice and only a few regulars played in the finale, which typically is treated as a dress rehearsal for the opener.
After Friday’s practice, Cooper walked that statement back a bit.
“I’m not blaming the start on anything but ourselves,” he said. “If you’re going to start conjuring up contributing factors, I’m sure that’s a contributing factor. I mean, it ends there. It’s not that be-all, end-all on why we started slow.”
Ultimately, the main factor in the Lightning’s reversal of fortune is that they’ve taken a lot of the risk out of their game. They’re not allowing the odd-man rushes and high-danger scoring chances they were earlier in the season, and they’re allowing fewer chances overall while creating more for themselves.
The slog to open the season wasn’t much different from others the Lightning have experienced. But dealing with that kind of adversity early on and being forced to work your way out of it or fall behind in the standings could end up being better for the team in the long run, Point said.
“You know, if you come away with wins in some of those games where we’re not playing very well and we’re not playing the right way, maybe those habits continue,” he said. “But starting the way we did, I think it was a real kind of look-in-the-mirror time for us. I think that’s kind of what helped us snap out of some of the bad habits we were in and kind of forced us to be structured and play harder.
The addition of a pair of newcomers — center Dominic James and defenseman Charle-Edouard D’Astous — have added fresh energy to the lineup. It’s no coincidence that their arrival coincided with the Lightning’s surge, and their fast-paced and responsible play have pushed them into regular roles.
On the road trip, the Lightning are expected to get defenseman Max Crozier back from a lower-body injury sustained Oct. 14 in Washington. His return would give the Lightning eight healthy defensemen. In Friday’s practice, Crozier skated on the third pairing on the right side, with D’Astous. Emil Lilleberg and Darren Raddysh comprised a fourth pairing.
In the not-too-distant future, third-line center Nick Paul is expected to return, which would create a roster crunch among the forward group as well. Cooper said Friday that Paul will be considered day to day after the road trip ends on Thursday. The team already sent Mitchell Chaffee through waivers after he was a healthy scratch, and rookie forwards Jack Finley and Curtis Douglas both have seen their share of healthy-scratch games recently.
Cooper said he’d rather call those decisions “awesome choices” to make than difficult ones.
“I’d rather have the tough choice than the easy one, where it’s just like, ‘OK, it’s easy to pull this guy out because he hasn’t been doing very well,’” the coach said. “I’d rather have the hard decision of having to sit a kid that’s been playing unreal, because everybody’s playing unreal.”
