Zach Wilson trade serves as latest reminder of how Dallas Cowboys overpaid for Trey Lance

The Dallas Cowboys trade for a 2021 first-round quarterback stands out among others… and not for good reasons.

Thursday will mark the beginning of the 2024 NFL Draft. You do not have to be Russell Crowe’s character from A Beautiful Mind (I don’t know his name, I’ve never seen it) to be able to calculate that the 2021 NFL Draft took place three years ago.

This is pertinent information right now as the Class of 2021 are all eligible to have their fifth-year options exercised by the team that holds their contractual rights. Some picks like Micah Parsons are obvious decisions, but others aren’t even with the teams that originally selected them which adds a layer of complication.

Of the five quarterbacks taken in the first round that year, only the first one remains with his original squad. The Jacksonville Jaguars have been reportedly working on a contract extension with Trevor Lawrence on top of any fifth-year option discussion (important to note for Dak Prescott by the way), but the other four signal-callers have all been dealt by the team who handed them the keys to their franchise.

Monday saw the final non-Lawrence first-rounder get a new home as the New York Jets sent Zach Wilson to the Denver Broncos. Wilson is the third quarterback from that class to get dealt this offseason alone, but the one who got the party started back in August continues to look like the worst deal executed by the team acquiring him.

Shout out to the Dallas Cowboys.

The Zach Wilson trade serves as the latest reminder that the Cowboys overpaid for Trey Lance

It was a bit shocking when the Cowboys decided to trade for Trey Lance as last year’s preseason was coming to a close. All it takes is five minutes with OverTheCap.com to realize that Lance’s rookie contract (without his fifth-year option exercised) expires the same offseason as Dak Prescott’s current contract which provides basically no help as an option to pivot to in a non-Prescott world.

But the Cowboys made the trade and sent a fourth-round pick to the San Francisco 49ers in order to make it happen. As noted in the time that has since passed we have seen three more traded as well.

Earlier this offseason saw the aforementioned Jaguars trade for Mac Jones and the Pittsburgh Steelers bring in Justin Fields. They both dealt sixth-round draft picks (there is a condition on the Fields trade for what it is worth, but that’s the general neighborhood) which were already making the Lance trade look worse than a miscalculation of team control over the quarterback position for Dallas. Nevertheless it looked bad.

But in a supremely optimistic/homer sort of sense a Cowboys fan could have argued that Lance went higher than either Jones or Fields and was therefore worth more in a hypothetical trade. That status quo changed on Monday when the Broncos traded for Wilson (who went one spot ahead of Lance at number two overall) and also only paid a sixth. They even received a seventh in return!

There is no way to spin this. The Cowboys are the only exception (not the Paramore song) in terms of what teams paid for failed 2021 quarterbacks just from a capital standpoint, but even more so when you factor in the situation that they are in with Prescott. So many fans constantly suggest that the team could just pivot to Lance in 2025 as mentioned, but even if they wanted to sign him to a new deal with Prescott playing elsewhere, Lance would have an enormous amount of leverage against the team as their only option and someone who they had already sunk legitimate capital into.

Thankfully Wilson getting dealt likely puts an end to any other quarterbacks from that class making things look bad for the Cowboys. But that doesn’t change that things do look bad for them. Somehow they really are always the only exception.