FRISCO, Texas --聽In his first weekly radio interview of the season on 105.3 The Fan, Cowboys owner/GM Jerry Jones said that the Cowboys are "in play" to make a potential trade if the right situation presents itself.
"The best way for me to answer that is not timing wise, right on something this morning or this week, but if you look at it generally speaking, we're in play," Jones said when asked if he had still been holding "substantive" trade talks with teams around the league like he hinted at during training camp. "And that's the best way to describe it."
Jones added that if the Cowboys do make a move, it would likely be on the defensive side of the ball as he's confident in what the offense has, especially following the Broderick Jones trade.
"You could look for it to be defensively," Jones said. "You could more than likely see depth on defense. Defense would be the place."
Last week, the Cowboys opened up some聽cap room by restructuring the contracts of Kenny Clark, DaRon Bland and Jake Ferguson. While that financial flexibility can extend into future years, Jones said it's not out of the cards for the Cowboys to use it to add to their roster now.
"The timing is conspicuously obvious. But yeah, we could use it for this year's team," Jones said. "The cap is fungible, it laps over into multi-years, 3 or 4 on parts that you make available. That's hard to put your finger on. But that does show that we have really viable, serious room financially to make a trade if we wanted to right now."
During Cowboys training camp in Oxnard, California, Jones was often asked about his reference to the potential for a "substantive" deal. Jones said in the team's opening training camp press conference that high-draft picks were on the table.
"A top pick is expendable this year for me to add to somebody that meaningfully would help us now," he said, unequivocally. "And we would have the right kind of spot on our team for it. So I'm not just looking for a player. We're looking for somebody that can add to the mix here."
The Cowboys begin their 2026 season against the New York Giants on Sunday night. Could a significant addition to Dallas' defense come before then?
