As of the 2026 NFL offseason, the Dallas Cowboys have used more franchise tags than any other NFL team in the last 11 years. This year, they tagged star wideout George Pickens, despite him having a Pro Bowl and second-team All-Pro season. And many analysts, including Skip Bayless, find this move absurd.
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The longtime Cowboys fan has made his reservations about the team known over the years, and this offseason has been no different, especially after Jerry Jones and company didn’t make many exciting acquisitions in free agency or retain stars like Pickens.
“I give Jerry Jones a D – for free agency, and that’s D as in dumb, as in damn, as in what the hell are you doing or not doing,” Bayless began his rant on The Arena: Gridiron podcast.
“I dared Jerry Jones to do any one of these four moves… go sign Trey Hendrickson, or go sign Devin Lloyd, or go sign Riq Woolen, or go get Nakobe Dean, Jerry Jones,” added Bayless.
The veteran analyst also felt that offering Pickens to the Raiders in a trade for Maxx Crosby could have helped the Cowboys land the pass rusher. But that didn’t happen either. The Cowboys reportedly offered a first-round pick and a second-round pick for Crosby, but after the Ravens came in with two first-rounders, Jerry’s team backed out.
The Ravens then backed out of the Crosby trade themselves and went on to sign Hendrickson from the FA market, with Crosby returning to the Raiders and showing confidence that he’s sticking around. So, the Cowboys can’t get either of these two players now, leaving a position that seems very weak after Micah Parsons was traded to Green Bay.
If you’re wondering whether the Pickens trade would have created a hole in the receiver room, and rightly so, Bayless says acquiring someone like Romeo Doubs would have fixed that issue, who is now with the NE Patriots.
Bayless also believes that those reports saying how Jones and company offered first-round and second-round picks for players like Crosby are false and were leaked by the team to make their fans believe they’re at least trying to acquire players, when in reality they aren’t.
And the move at pass rusher the Cowboys did make, trading for Rashan Gary with the Packers and sending them a 2027 fourth-round pick, still didn’t impress Bayless.
“We went from high-motor Maxx Crosby to very-low motor Rashan Gary. We gave a fourth-round pick for a classic underachiever, who was about to get cut by the Packers… We could’ve given a fifth or a sixth[round pick] and gotten him.”
.@RealSkipBayless GOES OFF on Jerry Jones
“It’s just a bunch of phony baloney spewed by Jerry & Stephen Jones to try to convince Cowboy nation that they actually tried to spend money when they did not” pic.twitter.com/JD2bQq3wdO
— The Arena: Gridiron (@ArenaGridiron) March 13, 2026
While Bayless also went on to rant about the team’s not-so-clever moves in acquisitions like safety Jalen Thompson on an $11 million AAV, three-year deal, and cornerback Cobie Durant, these moves could very well be labeled good pickups.
And while the first week of free agency is over, the draft is not, where the team can bolster their defense even more, from pass rusher to linebacker to wherever. We’re still far away from the season.
