Having actually shown some life in the early part of the annual free agent frenzy, the Dallas Cowboys head into the 2025 NFL Draft weekend with numerous options to consider as they look to rebuild a competitive roster.

Having seen Rico Dowdle leave for Carolina, Brandin Cooks for New Orleans and Jourdan Lewis for Jacksonville, there are obvious holes for new head coach Brian Schottenheimer and the front office to address, even though apparent replacements arrived through the weeks of wheeling and dealing.

The Cowboys were, for a long time, mocked to pick RB Ashton Jeanty, but now seem to have fallen behind the likes of Las Vegas, Chicago, Jacksonville and the New York Giants in the race for the Boise State star without making a move to climb the draft order.

More recently, receivers Matthew Golden and Tetairoa McMillan have been the popular choices listed against Dallas’ 12^th overall pick and both could be there on opening night — but will the Cowboys’ front office opt instead to refresh the trenches with a lineman from either side of the ball?

“The team within the team — the offensive line — generally, we’ve had some pretty good ‘war daddy’ draft picks on our offensive line with the ones,” team owner/CEO/GM Jerry Jones said at the Cowboys traditional pre-draft press conference. “Obviously, when one of those guys come up, if they’re that kind of player, then you’re gonna have a lot of resources invested in that offensive line out there with him. … We won’t necessarily eliminate [it] because we’ve got the resources we have on our offensive line.”

The offseason talk from within Cowboys HOQ in Frisco is that the team wants to be able to select the best player available throughout the course of the draft. It is an opportunity they believe they have created by the mix of free agent signings — including running backs Javonte Williams and Miles Sanders, DT Solomon Thomas, LB Jack Sanborn, OG Robert Jones and DEs Payton Turner and Dante Fowler Jr — plus trading for CB Kaiir Elam, LB Kenneth Murray and backup QB Joe Milton III amongst others. Despite the earlier activity, Jones wasn’t shy in dropping mention of ‘a couple of pretty substantive trades’ that the club are apparently negotiating, although there was no further detail as to whether these would influence this weekend’s draft plans.

“I think at the end of the day, you are trying to pick the best player on the board,” Cowboys COO/co-owner Stephen Jones told reporters. “Now, if it’s up there and you’ve got guys who are equally rated for the most part, obviously you might lean into a position where, ‘Hey, we could use a little more help there’, but what you don’t want to see yourself doing is taking a player who is quite a bit down the line, a round down, and trying to take that player over a guy that you’ve got situated [with a first round grade].”

The Cowboys draft is one that particularly intrigues NFL Network analyst Daniel Jeremiah.

“I think, in my last mock draft, I had them taking Matthew Golden [and] I see the fit there as they need to upgrade that receiver room, for sure,” he revealed on his usual pre-draft media availability. “The expectation, though, in talking to

folks around the league in regards to the Cowboys, is they’ve done a lot of work on the interior offensive linemen. I don’t know if it was Stephen [Jones], but somebody in their press conference said they would be more likely to trade back than to trade up which, when I hear they’ve done a lot of work on interior offensive linemen, that matches up because you probably don’t love the value of taking an interior offensive lineman at 12. If you can slide back a bit and still come away with a Grey Zabel, who is a plug-and-play starter to replace Zack Martin, that makes sense.”

What Jeremiah would most like to see from Dallas, however, is a bit of draft day excitement.

“I was kind of tongue-in-cheek the other day but, just talking about the Cowboys, I

do miss the days when they were fun and aggressive,” he lamented. “They’ve drafted well obviously, and been smart but, for a team that hasn’t been able to get over the hump, it feels like, at some point in time — whether that’s trading a pick for a player, a veteran, or moving up in the draft, or trying to amass a bunch of picks in a future draft — they’ve been kind of playing it by the book, and they haven’t been able to get over the hump.

“At some point in time, I would like to see a risk, whether that’s in free agency, whether that’s in trading for a player, whether that’s trading up… It just feels like they need to be a little bit more aggressive, although that’s probably moreso holistically on the calendar than specifically in the draft.

“Philly has got a couple of Super Bowls by being very, very aggressive, trading picks for players, getting an international player and developing him into a premier left tackle, going out and getting Saquon Barkley when everybody said that running backs are not valued. They’ve gone outside the box and been aggressive, and I feel like the Cowboys going to have to take some swings too.”