Dallas Cowboys Trade Call on Jets WR Denzel Mims: What Went Wrong?

FRISCO - We knew the Dallas Cowboys had interest in exploring the availability of unhappy New York Jets wide receiver Denzel Mims. And we know they are one of four teams to have contacted the Jets to ask about the trade price.

So what went wrong? We now know that, too.

Two sources have confirmed the report out of New York that the Cowboys made that call regarding Mims, the former second-round pick out of Baylor who is buried on the Jets' depth chart.

But there is something more.

It has been reported that the Jets were asking for a fourth-round draft pick in exchange for Mims. And that is not exactly true.

Our sources add an important deal to the inquiries as they regard at least the Cowboys and the Seattle Seahawks. The price was not "a fourth-round pick.''

It was, to be precise, a conditional fifth-round pick that would elevate to a fourth should Mims gain 500 yards receiving with his new team.

The 6-3, 209-pound Mims, a speedy Texas native who we know would love to come home, certainly has his talents; the Cowboys scouting department has thought that since his 2020 NFL Draft. 

But 500 yards? In his two-year NFL career, he's totaled short of that (490, to be exact). The odds of him coming to Dallas and leap-frogging over the incumbent receivers not named "CeeDee Lamb'' to gain 500 yards seem long ... meaning the Cowboys were likely going to have to give a fifth-rounder that stays a fifth-rounder.

And Dallas - like the other interested clubs - were ultimately unwilling to pay even that.

Maybe the Cowboys (and the Seahawks and the Minnesota Vikings and the Carolina Panthers) miscalculated here. But the fifth-rounder became especially "high,'' we are told, because of the recent trades featuring receivers being dealt for seventh-round picks. (We're told the Cowboys were mindful of the fact that the Patriots traded former first-round draft pick N’Keal Harry to Chicago for a seventh-round pick in the 2024 draft, and of Laviska Shenault going to  the Panthers from the Jaguars for a 2023 seventh-round pick and a 2024 sixth-rounder).

In other words, the "established price'' is low. And Dallas - like the rest of the NFL - thought a fifth-rounder was too high.

In addition to Lamb, the Cowboys might have Michael Gallup in the lineup later in September as he continues to recover from an ACL tear. Otherwise, conventional wisdom says that Mims might've competed for the No. 3 job in Dallas. But for now, at least? Mims will continue to serve as an unhappy backup receiver option on the Jets' depth chart in 2022.

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