When previewing the Dallas Cowboys’ 2024 draft potential next week, discussions typically gloss over the fourth round. Makes sense, right? The Cowboys are slotted to make one selection in each of the first, second, third, fifth and sixth rounds, and two in the seventh round. They own a fourth-round pick.
Sort of.
The Cowboys traded their 2024 fourth-round selection to the San Francisco 49ers late last summer to bring in quarterback Trey Lance. The transaction involved an active NFL player and a future draft pick, but the circumstances surrounding it — when the trade happened and more so with how the 2024 offseason has gone for Dallas — make it different than what is typically the nature of this sort of trade.
Months before the Cowboys acquired Lance, they traded for two prominent veterans. Stephon Gilmore was brought in from Indianapolis for one of Dallas’ 2023 fifth-round picks, and Brandin Cooks came over from the Texans in exchange for another 2023 fifth-round pick and a 2024 sixth-rounder. Gilmore, who remains unsigned, is likely done in Dallas after one year. Cooks is entering the final year of his contract with a $10 million cap hit.
A big part of the value of draft picks comes in age and contract. The fifth-round pick it cost to acquire Gilmore would have netted the Cowboys an unproven player in his early 20s on a very cheap contract for at least four years. The trade-off, obviously, is that the Cowboys got a proven NFL talent, former Defensive Player of the Year who plugged right in and played a key role for the team in 2023, especially in helping overcome the injury to Trevon Diggs (even if it did come at a larger cap hit and for a shorter period of time). By all accounts, it was a worthwhile trade that was a tidy bit of business by the Cowboys’ front office. Take a lot of those parameters on Gilmore and apply to them to Cooks. The logic is similar.
The Lance trade is different. For one, Lance is very young. Last year was Lance’s third year in the NFL yet when training camp began, he was a recently turned 23-year-old, almost the exact same age as Dak Prescott was in 2016 when he was an NFL rookie. Unlike Gilmore and Cooks, Lance’s physical prime, as it pertains to an NFL talent, is ahead of him. That’s especially true when you adjust for position durability, in which a quarterback’s body holds up longer than a cornerback or wide receiver — and most other positions. That’s why Cooks is viewed to be toward the back end of his career while Prescott is lining up to get prime quarterback money, despite Prescott being only two months older than Cooks.
The other big difference with Lance is what’s ironclad knowledge. Cooks came to Dallas with six 1,000-yard seasons under his belt. Gilmore arrived as a five-time Pro Bowler and two-time All-Pro. In two years since the 49ers moved up to draft him No. 3 overall in 2021, Lance has made four starts and appeared in eight games. He’s attempted 102 passes, accounted for six touchdowns (five passing, one rushing) and thrown three interceptions. Whether the 49ers were discouraged by what they saw in those games, combined with three offseasons worth of practices, or they felt so confident in what they had in Brock Purdy — likely some combination of both — they were ready to move on from Lance.
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There is a chance that Lance is what he is and won’t amount to much in the NFL in the way of starting and living up to the expectations that come with his draft tag. There’s also a chance that Lance has something and can develop into a quality player. Aside from practices and a few games, there just hasn’t been much opportunity for Lance to prove himself one way or the other. That’s one of the biggest things that separates the trade for Lance from other NFL veterans, whether those veterans are proven playmakers like Gilmore and Cooks or reclamation projects like Lance’s 2021 draft mates, Mac Jones and Justin Fields.
In the positive or negative cases, there’s been enough shown to have a perception starting at one end of the spectrum or another. With Lance, there’s the talent and promise he showed during the draft process that made him a top-five overall pick and the shades of disappointment in his limited showings. It’s a combination that makes his new label of a fourth-rounder seem pretty fair.
Trey to Danny Gray ‼️
📺 #GBvsSF on KPIX pic.twitter.com/Z8hksxK08I
— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) August 13, 2022
What about the contract?
The Cowboys had a pretty easy decision on Lance’s fifth-year option, declining it this offseason, setting Lance up to be a free agent next spring. With Prescott still entrenched as the 2024 starter, and Cooper Rush also under contract, Lance enters this summer as the third-string quarterback again. Lance’s performances in summer workouts and into training camp — especially in the preseason — were going to be a major storyline from the moment the Cowboys traded for him. Now, with the Cowboys leaving Prescott without an extension entering the final year of his contract, Lance’s potential is an even bigger factor.
If the Cowboys let Prescott play out his deal, they’ll have no control on his future next spring, as contract terms don’t allow for the Cowboys to franchise tag Prescott. There are any range of scenarios in play for the Cowboys, and most are not in their control. Barring injury, Prescott is expected to take all of the meaningful snaps for the Cowboys in 2024. If Lance shows the Cowboys in his limited opportunities they can feel confident with him under center, the Dallas could face an interesting set of options.
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If Prescott performs well individually and it translates to team success in the postseason, the Cowboys would be comfortable backing up the truck for him, although Prescott would still hold the power of choosing to be in Dallas or exploring the open market for just as much, if not more, elsewhere. If Prescott falters, or the team falls flat again in the playoffs, the Cowboys could let Prescott walk and sign Lance to an extension. It wouldn’t be a rookie contract exactly but would be a much more modest price tag relative to the going price for franchise starting quarterbacks. Again, that works only if the Cowboys feel confident in what they see from Lance and think they can use his much lower cap hit by building a better roster around him.
That’s why this summer is so big for Lance individually and the Cowboys as a team. If the Cowboys hadn’t traded for Lance last summer and still had their fourth-round pick next week and chose to spend it on a quarterback, that player would have a very similar aura hovering over him. It would be another young player, unproven at the NFL level but carrying intrigue and a cheap price tag for the foreseeable future. Instead of waiting to find out who that player would be next weekend, the Cowboys revealed Lance, their 2024 fourth-round selection, to be that guy last summer.
(Photo: Kyle Terada / USA Today)
