Who wants to see the Dallas Cowboys trade down?
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The Dallas Cowboys have the 12th overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. It will be the first time in four years that they will pick inside the first 24 picks of the draft. Only once over the last nine drafts have they picked in the first half of the first round and that was in 2021 when they selected Micah Parsons 12th overall. Typically, the Cowboys are picking near the end of the round, but due to their losing season last year, they are moving on up. They rarely get this type of opportunity, so hopefully they can really make it count.
What the Cowboys do at 12 is a big mystery. They are sitting in a position to possibly land one of this year’s blue chip players. And if they find themselves on the clock and their sixth or seventh ranked player is still there, bingo! A great Day 1 of the draft they will have.
But what if that is not the case? What if they get to pick 12 and all the top guys are gone, and they have a cluster of players to choose from who are all graded out similarly. Then what? If that is the case, the Cowboys should give serious consideration in trading back in the first round. They should still be able to get a player they want and grab some extra draft capital in the process.
That is exactly what they did last year when they moved back in the first round from 26 to 29 and scored an extra third-round pick that they used to select Cooper Beebe (73rd overall). They also did this in 2021 when they moved from 10 to 12 and again picked up an extra third-round pick used to select Chauncey Golston (84th overall).
If the Cowboys decided to move back, here is an idea of what they could get in return according to the NFL Trade Value Chart created by Drafttek.
The 14th overall pick + an early fourth-round pick
The 16th overall pick + a mid third-round pick
The 21st overall pick + a mid second-round pick
Do any of these trade options interest you? The Cowboys are a team that has elite talent at the top of the roster who command high prices. Those costs will get even higher when Micah Parsons and Tyler Smith get their soon-to-be coming extensions. And with Osa Odighizuwa already retained, there’s a lot of pie already allocated. With all these added costs, the Cowboys must rely on many young guys playing on low-cost rookie deals. Acquiring extra draft capital will help them address more areas on their roster.
The Cowboys don’t have a fourth-round pick this year, nor did they have one last year, but they have something even better. They have better draft capital. They can turn quality into quantity and turn things into better picks than they had a year ago, thanks to that very powerful 12th overall pick. Of course, all of this is predicated on the assumption that there isn’t a huge blinking light flashing for them when pick 12 rolls around, but if that light’s not there, they should be willingly working the phones on Day 1.