The Cowboys rained on Pittsburgh’s draft parade on Thursday night, by trading out of the No. 20 spot and allowing the Eagles to draft receiver Makai Lemon at a time when the Steelers had Lemon on the phone.
A report emerged that the Steelers weren’t happy with the Cowboys for giving the pick to the team that plucked Lemon. On Saturday, the powers-that-be in Dallas addressed that claim.
Via Jon Machota of The Athletic, Cowboys executive Stephen Jones said, “That’s not right.” Cowboys owner and G.M. Jerry Jones added, “Not at all.”
“I don’t want to get on their bad side,” Jerry Jones said. “I’m sorry if they’re mad. But, boy, I’ll tell you what, we’ve had it happen to us a bunch of times. It [was] traded right out from under us.”
Jerry Jones explained that the Cowboys traded up one spot in round one with the Dolphins to avoid being jumped by someone else for safety Caleb Downs. That’s how the draft works. All’s fair. There’s no reason for the Steelers to be upset. If they really wanted Lemon, they should have traded up to No. 19 or higher.
The draft is a free for all. A Battle Royale. Every team for itself. If you get jumped by a team that trades up, the last team to be pissed at is the team that traded down.
That’s how the draft goes. Anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t understand how the draft works. And if Steelers owner Art Rooney II is upset with Jerry Jones, Rooney shouldn’t be.
Our guess, with all due respect to the report that the Steelers are upset, is that the Steelers are embarrassed by the fact that their effort to draft Lemon became a public spectacle. But they aren’t — and shouldn’t be — upset with the Cowboys for exercising their absolute right to trade down.
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Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers offered some real-time reactions to the team’s first-round picks on Thursday night and they led to a conversation with head coach John Harbaugh.
Nabers appeared on a Bleacher Report livestream with Packers edge rusher Micah Parsons and said he loved fifth overall pick Arvell Reese as a player but wondered “where does he play” on a team that already has Brian Burns, Abdul Carter and Kayvon Thibodeaux on the edge. The Giants took offensive lineman Francis Mauigoa with the 10th pick and the Cowboys traded up to take safety Caleb Downs one pick later.
“I’d rather get him than play against him,” Nabers said of Downs.
On Saturday, Harbaugh said he had a “great conversation” with Nabers and that the wide receiver was “fired up and happy” about the team’s moves. He also said he welcomed the conversation about Reese because he knows that Nabers isn’t going to be the only one with questions about how the Giants plan to fit him into their defense.
“It’s like he said, I was curious about how you were going to use him,” Harbaugh said, via a transcript from the team. “I showed him how we’re going to use him. He is fired up about it. I appreciate it. You know, one thing that you’ll kind of probably see as we go here, we don’t get too worried about stuff. You know, as long as a person’s heart is in the right place, as long as the person really cares, a player, a coach, or anybody, you really want what’s best for everybody, you’re coming from -- he has a good heart and a good place, you know, say what you think. Put it out there. We talk all the time about confronting everything that has to do with our football. So Malik wants to know how we’re going to use our first round pick, I want to show him. I want to explain it to him. The fact that he says it publicly, who cares? I know fans are probably thinking the same thing. It was the same question that everybody is going to have, and we knew that, because we knew how kind of Arvell was perceived.”
The Giants will see Downs twice a year as long as he’s in Dallas and that may not put a smile on Nabers’s face, but it will be easier to deal with any disappointment if Reese and Mauigoa blossom into the kind of players the Giants believe they can be.
When the Cowboys were on the clock before the 20th pick in the 2026 NFL draft, the Eagles called with a trade proposal. The Cowboys accepted, and the Eagles moved up and drafted wide receiver Makai Lemon. In making that deal, Cowboys owner and General Manager Jerry Jones disregarded one of the first lessons he ever learned: Don’t trade with a division rival.
That lesson was taught to him by former Raiders owner and General Manager Al Davis, who served as an early mentor when Jones bought the Cowboys. But it’s a lesson Jones said he doesn’t agree with.
“I don’t really pay much attention to who I’m talking to,” Jones said when asked about trading within the NFC East. “Al Davis, probably the first thing he tried to put in my head was, ‘Don’t even answer a call from your division. Jerry, this is all about strategizing against your division opponents because you play them twice and you can’t forget that edge there. That’s a very strategic edge.’ So I didn’t take that lesson from Al.”
Jones has had an inconsistent approach to heeding Davis’s lesson. Last year, when the Eagles wanted to trade for Micah Parsons, Jones wouldn’t even discuss it with them, instead trading him to a non-division opponent, the Packers. But Jones has made other trades with the Eagles, including the 2021 draft-day trade that resulted in the Eagles taking DeVonta Smith and the Cowboys taking Parsons.
Lemon wouldn’t be an Eagle if not for Jones’ help; the Steelers were about to take Lemon at No. 21 before the Eagles got him at No. 20. If Lemon makes big plays twice a year against the Cowboys, Jones may regret ignoring Davis’s advice.
Texas A&M running back E.J. Smith participated in Dallas Day, the Cowboys’ annual workout day for local prospects. That gave Cowboys fans hope that Smith might sign with the hometown team and follow in the footsteps of his father.
But as he did in choosing his college, E.J. Smith is his own man.
After going undrafted, the son of Pro Football Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher, is signing with the Chiefs.
E.J. Smith announced his decision on Instagram.
“Excited to officially sign with the Kansas City Chiefs as a free agent,” Smith wrote. “Nothing is given. Everything is earned. I’m ready to work, learn, and prove myself every single day. Thank you to my family, coaches, teammates, and everyone who believed in me and pushed me to this moment. The journey hasn’t been easy, but every challenge prepared me for this next step. Grateful is an understatement. All glory to God for this opportunity. Let’s get it Chiefs Kingdom.”
Smith spent four seasons at Stanford and two at Texas A&M.
He had only 44 carries for 205 yards and four touchdowns and four catches for 18 yards in 2025, but had two memorable plays for the Aggies. Smith picked up a first down on fourth-and-1 at his own 34-yard line with 10 minutes left in a close game with Arkansas, getting to the stick despite tight end Micah Riley running into him in the backfield. In a game against UTSA, Smith made three blocks on K.C. Concepcion’s 80-yard punt return.
He finished his career with 207 carries for 969 yards and nine touchdowns and added 470 receiving yards and a touchdown.
As hot mic moments go, it was pretty tame. But what came after it underscores the manner in which draft coverage has evolved.
Via Brandon Contes of Awful Announcing, Nick Saban was heard saying after the Cowboys made defensive end Malachi Lawrence the 23rd overall pick in the draft, “Wow, this is a reach.”
When he knew he was on the air, Saban sang a much different tune.
“Actually, this guy was one of my sleepers for tomorrow,” Saban said. “But he is a good player. . . . This guy is a good player. I thought he was someone that was getting overlooked in the draft, but obviously the Cowboys didn’t overlook him.”
So why wouldn’t Saban just be honest with the audience and say what he believes? “This is a reach.” What’s wrong with that? Wouldn’t football fans want to know what Saban thinks about incoming talent?
The self-editing speaks to the vibe surrounding the draft, especially on the first night. Under the guise of not wanting to piss on the parade of the players who are picked, it has become frowned upon to say anything other than, “Everything is awesome!”
Time will tell whether the player pans out. Anywhere from one third to half of all first-round picks don’t.
But you’ll never hear during draft coverage the basic fact that plenty of the round-one picks will have their potential unfulfilled.
Unless, of course, someone’s mic is hot and they inadvertently tell the truth.
Cowboys owner and General Manager Jerry Jones says his defense is a whole lot better than it was last year — and a whole lot better than it was 48 hours ago.
On Day One of the draft, the Cowboys spent first-round picks on safety Caleb Downs and pass rusher Malachi Lawrence. On Day Two, the Cowboys drafted edge rusher Jaishawn Barham and traded for linebacker Dee Winters from the 49ers. Jones said that with those additions and other moves the Cowboys have made this offseason, the defense is very different than it has been in recent years.
“We have been able to, as of right now, rebuild this defense,” Jones said. “We’ve changed this defense. . . . This is a product of three, four, five years or maybe more of not getting where we’re trying to go and being a contender. It’s going to be different, it’s going to be fresh, we’ve got a lot of great energy here, we’ve got guys coming in like we introduced today. . . . When I lay my head down tonight I’m going to say, We’re doing something about the defense on this team.”
Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer said the work they’ve done in the first two days of the draft is part of an effort that began with the trade for Quinnen Williams in November and has continued through free agency this year.
“We felt like this was going to be a continuation of getting the defense where we want it to be,” Schottenheimer said.
Schottenheimer said his late father, longtime NFL head coach Marty Schottenheimer, would have loved the tough, physical players they’re adding. He pointed to Barham as the kind of player Marty Schottenheimer would have wanted on his teams.
“If you were doing the old Oklahoma drill, which my old man would love to see, I’d probably put Jaishawn out there for the first reps,” Schottenheimer said.
The Cowboys traded away one of the best defensive players in football when they sent Micah Parsons to the Packers. Now they think they’ve used the picks they got for Parsons, and made more moves beyond that, to build a better defense.
The Ravens closed out the original Cowboys Stadium by beating Dallas on a Saturday night in December 2008. The Ravens will now be the visiting team for the Cowboys’ first-ever international home game.
The NFL announced on Friday night that the Ravens and Cowboys will play in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, September 27. It will be a Week 3 game, televised by CBS at 4:25 p.m. ET.
Most international games currently land in standalone windows. This one won’t, but it likely will be the top national game that afternoon — likely generating the biggest audience of the day.
In 2024 and 2025, the Brazilian game came in Week 1. This year, the 49ers and Rams will instead play in Australia to get things started.
Those are the only two games with both teams known. The other 270 will be announced in the next few weeks.
The Cowboys added two players to their defense in the first round of the draft and they picked up a veteran on that side of the ball on Friday night.
According to multiple reports, they have agreed to a trade that will bring linebacker Dee Winters to Dallas. The 49ers will receive the 152nd pick in the draft in return for Winters.
Winters was a 2023 sixth-round pick by the Niners and he started all 17 games for the team last season. He had 101 tackles and returned his only interception of the season for a 74-yard touchdown.
DeMarvion Overshown is the top linebacker on the Cowboys’ depth chart and Winters should slot in alongside him on defensive coordinator Christian Parker’s unit.
The Cowboys went into the draft thinking their chances of landing Ohio State safety Caleb Downs were “a longshot.” Downs, though, was on the board for the taking at No. 11, and the Cowboys traded up one spot to draft a safety in the first round for the first time since 2002 when Roy Williams was the pick at No. 8 overall.
Owner Jerry Jones called Downs a player capable of being “a quarterback of the defense.”
Like Hall of Fame finalist Darren Woodson back in the 1990s, the Cowboys believe Downs can play safety, nickel and corner.
“I think it’s just being able to make plays in all facets of the game,” Downs said of how he fits in the Cowboys’ defense, via Tommy Yarrish of the team website. “Whether that’s near the line of scrimmage or in the deep part of the field, I feel like I could do it all and it’ll be a great relationship to be able to do that with the Cowboys.”
The Cowboys have never won a Super Bowl without a Hall of Fame-caliber safety on their roster. They had Hall of Famer Cliff Harris on their roster for their two Super Bowl wins in the 1970s and Woodson for their three Super Bowl titles in the 1990s, though Woodson was a rookie in 1992.
“He’s a multiplier,” Cowboys vice president of player personnel Will McClay said of Downs. “He’s going to make other people better.”
The Cowboys gave up a team-record 511 points last season, ranking among the worst defenses in the NFL in most of the major categories.
Before the draft got underway on Thursday night, there were multiple reports that Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens will sign his franchise tag and the team confirmed it when they met with the media after the first round.
The move comes a day after the Cowboys announced that they will not be signing Pickens to a long-term deal this offseason and it guarantees him $27.3 million for the 2026 season. It also allows the Cowboys to trade Pickens, but executive vice president Stephen Jones said on Thursday night that such a move is not on the team’s radar.
“We have no intention of moving George,” Jones said, via the team’s website. “We’re fired up about him signing his [tag], because it means he’s ready to come in here and get to work. . . . We have zero intention of moving [him].”
Assuming nothing changes on the contract or trade front, Pickens’ future will again be a topic of great interest in the 2027 offseason. For now, though, he’s set for a second season in Dallas.
