NFL Trade Deadline Passes With the Cowboys Standing Pat: No Tuesday Trade in Dallas, While Cousins, Allen and Downs All Moved
The 3 p.m. Central deadline came and went without a Cowboys deal — exactly as Jerry Jones said it would all day. Dallas's only in-season trade remains the October 1 deal for Joey Porter Jr. The rest of the league spent Tuesday moving quarterbacks and receivers.
FRISCO — The NFL trade deadline passed at 3 p.m. Central today, and the Dallas Cowboys did not make a trade. USA TODAY's live deadline file, read in full by this desk after the deadline passed, records no Cowboys transaction on Tuesday: the club's only in-season deal remains the October 1 trade that brought cornerback Joey Porter Jr. from Pittsburgh for a 2028 second-round pick and a 2027 sixth-round pick. The quiet finish is the one the building promised all day — owner and general manager Jerry Jones said on 105.3 The Fan in the morning that he did not look for Dallas to make a significant trade, and in the final hours that the club had held no meaningful dialogue about any player in two or three weeks. Jones had said the one move coming Tuesday was adding a running back, probably by signing; no such signing appears in the deadline file read this run, and this desk does not report one.
The rest of the league was not quiet. The day's biggest move sent quarterback Kirk Cousins from Las Vegas back to Minnesota — the franchise he led from 2018 to 2023 — for a 2027 third-round pick, after the Vikings' Monday night loss to Buffalo, with the No. 1 pick Fernando Mendoza now set to take the starting reins for the Raiders in Week 10 against Seattle. Tennessee traded safety Amani Hooker, tied for the league lead with five interceptions, to Buffalo for second- and fifth-round picks, while deciding not to move running back Tony Pollard. Indianapolis, in the middle of its teardown, sent wide receiver Keenan Allen to San Francisco for a sixth-round pick and wide receiver Josh Downs to Kansas City for fourth- and fifth-round picks with a seventh going back — and kept running back Jonathan Taylor. The Chargers sent linebacker Daiyan Henley, their leading tackler with 51, to Denver for a 2027 fourth-round pick and a 2028 fifth.
For Dallas, standing pat is a bet on the roster that beat Indianapolis 27-23 on Sunday: a 4-5 team whose deadline needs, by Jones's own account, were injury problems at linebacker and in the secondary rather than a headline acquisition. The Cowboys host the 7-1 San Francisco 49ers on Sunday at AT&T Stadium, kickoff 3:25 p.m. CT on FOX — a 49ers team that spent deadline day adding Allen to an injury-thinned receiving corps. Any post-deadline signing, including the running back Jones promised, will be reported by this desk when the club actually makes it.
