Cowboys Clips
The Cowboys are meeting with a potential addition to their secondary on Tuesday.
Cornerback Adoree’ Jackson is visiting with the team, per a report from NFL reporter Jordan Schultz. The Cowboys currently have one open spot on their 90-man roster.
Jackson played for the Eagles last season and he recorded 55 tackles and an interception in 14 regular season appearances. He also had four tackles in their playoff loss to the 49ers.
The move to the Eagles came after Jackson spent four seasons with the Giants. The 2017 first-round pick spent his first four years in the league with the Titans. He has 459 tackles, five interceptions, six forced fumbles, and five fumble recoveries over the course of his career.
The Cowboys signed Cobie Durant and Derion Kendricks as free agents before drafting Devin Moore in the fourth round last month. DaRon Bland and Shavon Revel are their top returning corners.
Former NFL defensive end and Fox Sports and ESPN on-air personality Marcellus Wiley is facing four claims of sexual assault, according to Drew Lerner of Awful Announcing.
The allegations appear in court filings made last month. Per the report, the four new claimants are in addition to three existing claims of sexual assault against Wiley. He previously dubbed the prior claims “B.S.,” and his lawyer formally denied the allegations in court papers.
As explained by Lerner, one of the new claims was made by an ESPN production assistant who claims that Wiley assaulted her in his hotel room. Another claim, per the report, was made by a woman who contends that Wiley raped her on her 18th birthday, after allegedly “grooming” her since she was 13.
Wiley left Fox Sports in 2022. He has produced podcast content independently since then.
A second-round pick out of Columbia in 1997, Wiley spent four years with the Bills, three with the Chargers, one with the Cowboys, and two with the Jaguars. He was a Pro Bowler and a second-team All-Pro in 2001.
UPDATE 5/6/2026 10:00 a.m. ET: On Tuesday, Wiley strongly denied the new allegations. He also posted documents on Twitter showing that three prior claims were dismissed.
The reduction of the round one selection window from 10 minutes to eight minutes made things move more quickly in the 2026 NFL draft. It also made things very interesting in Dallas.
The new documentary, The Pick Is In, shows the internal machinations within the Cowboys’ draft room regarding the effort to trade up from No. 12 to No. 11, with the Dolphins.
Initially, the Dolphins rejected an offer of a fifth-round pick “plus something” from Cowboys executive Stephen Jones. As Miami’s eight minutes continued to tick away, the Cowboys tried again.
This time, the “plus something” was another fifth-round pick. Miami accepted.
So the deal was done. But there was one detail remaining. The Cowboys needed to get the pick in, or the Dolphins would have been able to take a player before the Cowboys could.
Jones communicated the terms to the league. When he hung up, Jones pointed to the clock and said, “We got ten seconds!”
The Cowboys made the pick without incident, selecting Ohio State safety Caleb Downs. But it wouldn’t have been the first time there was an incident.
In 2003, the Vikings let the clock expire at No. 7 (they apparently thought they had a trade with the Ravens, at No. 10). The Jaguars (who were at No. 8) and the Panthers (who were at No. 9) made their picks before the Vikings selected defensive tackle Kevin Williams at No. 9.
It would have been odd, to say the least, if the Cowboys had blown the window and the Dolphins would have picked before the Cowboys, despite getting two fifth-round picks to let the Cowboys go first.
Obviously, that didn’t happen. But The Pick Is In gives everyone a look behind the curtain into the sausage-making process. And the Cowboys nearly ended up with something in the sausage that was definitely not a caper.
The Cowboys are adding an offensive lineman who tried out for the team at their rookie minicamp to their 90-man roster.
Agent Brett Tessler announced that his client DJ Wingfield has agreed to sign with the NFC East club.
Wingfield planned to play for USC in 2025 and, per Tessler, agreed to “a large NIL deal” with the school. Wingfield was ruled to be ineligible, however, and did not appear in any games for the Trojans.
Wingfield played at Purdue, New Mexico and in junior college before his attempted transfer to USC. He started 12 games at right guard for Purdue in 2024.
As rookies throughout the NFL get their first taste of pro football, some of them will be getting a second taste of their most recent meals.
Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer made it clear during the team’s rookie minicamp that the new players are struggling.
“None of these guys are in great shape right now,” Schottenheimer told reporters. “You might have saw a few guys getting sick yesterday. A little bit of vomiting going on.”
It’s not a surprise. After football season ended, most of them spent time not doing football conditioning but preparing for the specific drills of the Scouting Combine and the Pro Day workout. Many of them spent the weeks before the draft flying around to various team facilities for visits. (Schottenheimer mentioned that first-rounder Malachi Lawrence visited 16 or 17 teams.)
When the rookie minicamp rolls around, they all get thrown into the fray. And even if it’s not full pads, it’s football practice. For guys who haven’t practiced any football in months.
It’s also a way to get their attention before they get thrown into the mix of offseason workouts with the veterans. The culture shock doesn’t happen in September. It arrives in May, as the first part of the process aimed at getting them ready for the real thing.
The Cowboys traded up one spot before taking safety Caleb Downs in the first round of this year’s draft, but that deal only came after an attempt to move even higher was rebuffed.
A clip from ESPN’s The Pick Is In shows Browns general manger Andrew Berry fielding a call from Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones while on the clock at No. 9. Berry turned down Dallas’s offer of their No. 12 and No. 20 picks for No. 9 and No. 24, and he did not change his mind when Jones offered to add a fifth-round pick to the offer.
The offer suggests the Cowboys thought that the Giants were going to take Downs at No. 10 as that was a frequent link during the mock draft season. The Giants wound up taking tackle Francis Mauigoa and the Cowboys wound up sending two fifth-rounders to the Dolphins to move up to No. 11 for Downs. They later traded down three spots from No, 20 and picked up two fourth-round picks.
The Browns took tackle Spencer Fano at No. 9 and another clip from the show features Berry talking to the Browns’ draft room after they traded down from No. 6 into that spot. He said Fano, Mauigoa and wide receiver Jordyn Tyson were the players the team was considering at No. 9 and Tyson went to New Orleans at No. 8, so another move down may have left them without all of their preferred options with their first of two first-round picks.
He was the eleventh overall pick in the draft. As of Friday, however, Cowboys safety Caleb Downs had the top-selling jersey among all rookies.
Fanatics has announced, via Fox Sports, the ten best-selling rookie jerseys in the wake of the 2026 draft. Downs leads the way.
Raiders quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the No. 1 overall pick, lands at No. 5. That’s one spot behind Steelers rookie quarterback Drew Allar, a third-round pick, who sits at No. 4.
Here’s the full top ten: (1) Downs; (2) Dolphins linebacker Jacob Rodriguez; (3) Cowboys linebacker Malachi Lawrence; (4) Allar; (5) Mendoza; (6) Dolphins cornerback Chris Johnson; (7) Cardinals running back Jeremiyah Love; (8) Patriots offensive lineman Caleb Lomu; (9) Bears safety Dillon Thieneman; (10) Jets linebacker David Bailey.
The presence of two Cowboys defensive players in the top three and two Dolphins defensive players in the top six could be a reflection of the overall optimism the fans of those teams are currently feeling. For Dallas, the offense is among the best in the league; it won’t take much defensive improvement to make the team a contender. As to the Dolphins, it’s a new era with the hiring of G.M. Jon-Eric Sullivan and coach Jeff Hafley.
It’s somewhat surprising that none of the four receivers taken in the first round made the list. And the absence of Rams quarterback Ty Simpson reflects the reality that he’ll be spending a year (or two, or maybe three) behind Matthew Stafford.
The numbers will surely change once the depth charts are determined for 2026 and, after that, the games are played. The rookies who play and play well will see a spike in jersey sales.
The unexpected decision of Cowboys receiver George Pickens to accept his franchise tender has sparked plenty of speculation. The explanation seems to be pretty simple.
From the perspective of Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer, the situation is sufficiently simple to require barely a second of thought, or discussion.
On Saturday, Schottenheimer made it clear that he sees no purpose in speaking to Pickens about his decision.
“I don’t think there’s any reason for us to have that [conversation],” Schottenheimer said Saturday, via Joseph Hoyt of the Dallas Morning News. “That’s not what we plan on doing.”
So why does Schottenheimer believe Pickens decided to commit to a one-year, $27.298 million contract with the Cowboys?
“I think because George would play this game for a dollar as much as he loves football,” Schottenheimer said. “These guys that love playing the game, they love playing the game.”
That’s a gross oversimplification of the situation. The better view is that Pickens had no other viable alternative. With the Cowboys unwilling to give Pickens a long-term deal, and with no other team willing to sign him to an offer sheet that would require two first-round picks as compensation if the proposal wasn’t matched, Pickens’s only play was to take $27.298 million (even if it’s nearly $15 million below the top of the market), have another big year, and do it again in 2027.
And while some continue to wonder whether Pickens’s next play will be to skip next month’s mandatory minicamp, we’d suggest cracking open a can of common sense. Why would he accept the tender now and then subject himself to nearly $100,000 in fines when he could have simply not accepted the tender until after the minicamp came and went?
The gesture suggests that Pickens is all in for 2026. That he’ll be there, with the goal of repeating his performance from 2025 and, in turn, putting the lingering issues from his three years in Pittsburgh deeper into the rear-view mirror.
The Cowboys are holding their rookie minicamp this weekend and they used the occasion as reason to finalize agreements with 11 undrafted free agents.
A couple of the new additions to the roster are tight ends. The Cowboys did not draft any players at the position last week.
D.J. Rogers caught 34 passes for 319 yards and two touchdowns during his final season at TCU. Michael Trigg played at USC and Ole Miss before transferring to Baylor for the last two seasons. He had 80 catches for 1,089 yards and nine touchdowns while with the Bears.
The Cowboys also signed Georgia Southern wide receiver Camden Brown, Kansas defensive tackle Tommy Dunn, Baylor tackle Sidney Fugar, Virginia Tech defensive tackle Kelvin Gilliam, SMU wide receiver Jordan Hudson, Vanderbilt linebacker Langston Patterson, Kentucky tackle Shiyazh Pete, Tulsa running back Dominic Richardson, and Kansas defensive tackle D.J. Withers.
The Cowboys announced that they have signed their top pick from this year’s draft.
They have signed safety Caleb Downs along with five other draft picks. The Cowboys traded up on spot to take Downs at No. 11 and he’s expected to move directly into the starting lineup as a rookie.
Downs was the first of two first-round selections this year. Edge rusher Malachi Lawrence was the other one and he is the only member of the draft class who has not agreed to his rookie deal yet.
The Cowboys have also signed third-round linebacker Jaishawn Barham, fourth-round tackle Drew Shelton, fourth-round cornerback Devin Moore, fourth-round edge rusher LT Overton, and seventh-round wide receiver Anthony Smith.
