The Cowboys definitely didn’t win trade for Jonathan Mingo

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones promised that his team would be active during the NFL trade deadline on Tuesday and although he lived up to that promise, the Cowboys might have been better off if he didn’t.

The Cowboys pulled off what will almost certainly go down as the most bizarre trade of the day when they acquired Jonathan Mingo from the Carolina Panthers. You could argue that adding a receiver for the Cowboys makes sense, but the problem is that they substantially overpaid for him.

Let’s take a look at the deal:

Cowboys get: Jonathan Mingo, 2025 seventh-round pick
Panthers get: 2025 fourth-round pick
That’s right, the Cowboys gave up a fourth-round pick to land a guy who has scored exactly zero receiving touchdowns in his career.

There was no reason for the Cowboys to pay that price for an inexperienced receiver, especially when a fourth-round pick could have potentially gotten them so much more. Over the past month alone, we’ve seen Davante Adams, DeAndre Hopkins and Diontae Johnson all traded for a third-round pick or worse.

Here’s what the deal looked like that sent Adams from the Raiders to the Jets.

Jets get: Davante Adams
Raiders get: 2025 conditional third-round pick (Could become a second-round pick if Adams makes the All-Pro team or if he’s on the Jets roster if they reach the AFC Championship or Super Bowl)
Now, let’s take a look at the deal that sent Johnson from the Panthers to the Ravens.

Ravens get: Diontae Johnson, 2025 sixth-round pick
Panthers get: 2025 fifth-round pick
Now, let’s take a look at the deal that sent Hopkins from Tennessee to Kansas City.

Chiefs get: DeAndre Hopkins

Titans get: 2025 conditional fifth-round pick (Could become a fourth-round pick if certain conditions are met)
The Chiefs got a much better receiver in Hopkins for what might end up being a fourth-round pick. The Jets’ trade for Adams is likely going to end up being for a third-round pick unless New York somehow manages to get to the AFC title game. And then there’s Johnson, who also got dealt for a fifth-round pick.

Under the current market conditions, a fourth-round pick can get you a productive player, but the Cowboys decided to overpay for Mingo, who is a former second-round pick, who has caught 55 passes for 539 yards in 1.5 seasons with the Panthers. That’s a big reason why we gave them a D+ for the trade (You can read our grades here).

The only argument for Mingo is that he’s on a rookie deal, so he’s much cheaper than the other players we mentioned, but the Cowboys have the sixth-most available cap space in the NFL (via OverTheCap), so that shouldn’t have been a huge issue.

The Cowboys also have an injured quarterback in Dak Prescott, who’s likely headed for injured reserve, which means Mingo will be catching passes from Cooper Rush. It’s hard to imagine the Cowboys will be getting their money’s worth in this trade with Rush at quarterback.

It’s been a bizarre year for the Cowboys and the confounding decisions only continue. Not only did they pass up on Derrick Henry in free agency, but they waited until the last minute to get a deal done with Prescott, and because of that, they had to break the bank to make it happen, paying him an NFL-record $60 million per year.