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Cowboys potential trade target Breece Hall
When it comes to offseason drama, the Cowboys have already had a decent share. The contract extension that needs to happen with Micah Parsons—sooner rather than later—will be the big news, while the move on coach Mike McCarthy is the most pressing. But there’s still the matter of filling out the roster, and coming off of last season’s disaster, that’s going to prove difficult.
Remember, last year’s disappointment started in March, when the Cowboys—unwilling to move quickly on contracts for CeeDee Lamb and Dak Prescott that could have given the team financial flexibility—did virtually nothing in free agency or on the trade market.
The hope is that the team has learned a lesson. That’s difficult when your GM is also your owner who happens to be an octogenarian with an inability to catch up with the modern NFL. But if you’re a Cowboys fan, what can you do but hope?
One area in which the Cowboys clearly could use some depth is the running game, which they botched last year. They will need to re-sign Rico Dowdle after a solid season, but they need depth there, too. One star-caliber player who could be had in a trade stands out: Breece Hall of the Jets.
Cowboys Would Trade 2 Picks
That’s the play at the NFL contract-expert website Spotrac, where managing editor Mike Ginnitti has a potential deal for Hall all laid out. Hall is only 23, a former second-round pick whose role in New York has fluctuated.
He had 876 yards on 209 carries last season, an average of 4.2 yards per carry. He was an excellent receiver out of the backfield, too, catching 57 passes for 483 yards, giving him 1,359 yards from scrimmage, 16th in the NFL.
Writing on Spotrac, Ginnitti predicted the following deal:
The Jets trade RB Breece Hall to the Dallas Cowboys in exchange for a 3rd & 6th round pick
He explained: “From A-Z, the Jets organization appears to be at a crossroads, setting up an opportunity for rostered players nearing next contract negotiations to be poached.
Running back appears to be one of the deeper positions on this Jets roster, setting them up to float Hall in trade discussions this March as they look to bulk up on draft picks for the pending rebuild. Hall’s deal contains 2 years, $3.4M remaining, none of which is guaranteed.”
Breece Hall Makes No Sense in a Rebuild
Now, that is good value for the Cowboys, because Hall has the potential to step in and start for the Cowboys, and could make for a solid 1-2 punch alongside Dowdle, who rushed for 1,079 yards this season. The Cowboys would erode their 2024 draft, though, having already traded away their fourth-rounder for Jonathan Mingo.
The question would be, why would the Jets trade a young back like Hall? Ginnitti took that up in a recent episode of “The Spotrac Podcast.”
He said: “The other big name here is Breece Hall. This is not clickbait by any regards. We have absolutely no idea how aggressively big the Jets offseason is going to get in terms of ripping it down or the Rodgers drama—which is already starting to rear its ugly head. If the plan is to go back in the draft and start this thing over, now you’ve got to look yourself in the mirror if you’re Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall and some of these players that are extension eligible. Kind of found themselves in reduced roles.
“You pick up the phone and you make a call to whoever the GM is going to be in February and say, ‘What’s the deal with Breece? Is there an offer out there?’ It’s not like there is not a backup plan. This is a team that has been drafting running backs pretty exclusively, pretty annually.”
Sean Deveney is a veteran sports reporter covering the NBA, NFL and MLB for Heavy.com. He has written for Heavy since 2019 and has more than two decades of experience covering the NBA, including 17 years as the lead NBA reporter for the Sporting News. Deveney is the author of 7 nonfiction books, including "Fun City," "Before Wrigley became Wrigley," and "Facing Michael Jordan." More about Sean Deveney
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