Making sense of the Cowboys’ decision to trade for Trey Lance

I’ll be totally honest with you. Initially I did not understand it at all. In my first moments of processing the Dallas Cowboys’ decision to trade for Trey Lance I could not wrap my mind around why they would want to do this. We know the storylines that are associated with this team and how the national media can take off with things. Why would they purposefully incite a fire with the most important player on their team in quarterback Dak Prescott?

To be clear, Dak isn’t, and more importantly, really can’t go anywhere. He is on the books for almost $60M next year and has a no-trade clause. If you are thinking that Trey Lance represents the end of the Prescott era then you are only fulfilling the prophecy of the headlines to come.

But back to Lance himself, working through this on our live emergency episode about this, which you can watch right above here, the positives came to light. There are several reasons why it makes sense.

The Cowboys now have one of the more solid QB3 options for 2023 and a potentially great QB2 of the future

If you did not know the NFL now has an emergency third quarterback rule. If you have a third one on your 53-man roster, we presume Lance will fill this role, they are allowed to enter a game for you in an emergency situation without being a part of the 46 players who are active for the game in question.

Trey Lance now fills the QB3 role for the Cowboys (Will Grier will not be making this team) and has the potential to climb as high as QB2 with full level development and opportunities. Look around the NFL, find a QB3 option you feel better about than Lance. It is a tough thing to do.

Aside from that Lance also has the potential to develop into a proper backup for Prescott, all due respect to Rush. We know that the Cowboys have wanted to draft a quarterback as of late, the right opportunity just never presented itself. Dallas now acquired a prospect of a player for a Day 3 pick that is still just 23 years old.

If Trey Lance truly does develop, the only problems that generates are good things

Let’s forecast in an incredibly optimistic way. Say that Trey Lance is awesome in his opportunities with the Cowboys.

While it remains unlikely that Dallas would make a move at the starter, if there is a better player available, isn’t that a good thing? Similarly if Lance plays well in parallel with Prescott then the Cowboys have the ability to flip him in the future for some sort of compensation. Remember that Lance is only on the third year of his rookie contract although we will see if the team picks up his fifth-year option in the spring.

The talk shows will be rabid with this, but everyone who works at The Star is used to that. The only problems that come from this are good things for the team in the overall. Lance has a high-quality character so it’s not like he is going to be some sort of locker room distraction.

Dallas paid nothing significant for a lottery ticket

Again, we know that the Cowboys have been wanting to draft a quarterback over the last few years. They just did that at the price of a fourth-round pick. That’s nothing (although Dak Prescott himself was one).

Consider that on Thursday the Arizona Cardinals sent a fifth-round pick to the Cleveland Browns for Joshua Dobbs. One of my favorite recent moves of this kind, annoyingly, was the Philadelphia Eagles sending a conditional sixth-round pick in 2022 to the Jacksonville Jaguars for Gardiner Minshew. Neither Dobbs nor Minshew were ever thought of in the way Lance has been from a prospect evaluation standpoint.

The Cowboys are getting a relatively free look at a potential franchise quarterback type of talent. If there is clutter along the way then they can absolutely figure that out.