{"id":265678,"date":"2026-04-25T08:45:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T08:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/265678\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T08:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T08:45:15","slug":"cowboys-49ers-trade-grades-dee-winters-heads-to-dallas-on-nfl-draft-day-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/265678\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowboys-49ers trade grades: Dee Winters heads to Dallas on NFL Draft Day 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"NFL:<\/p>\n

Imagn Images<\/p>\n

FRISCO, Texas — The Dallas Cowboys<\/a> entered the 2026 NFL Draft<\/a> with a laundry list of defensive needs after allowing 30.1 points per game in 2025 — the most in the league and the second-most in a season in franchise history. The Cowboys improved at safety and edge rusher last night; however, the middle inside linebacker spot next to\u00a0DeMarvion Overshown<\/a>\u00a0remained a significant vacancy after it was manned by the departed\u00a0Kenneth Murray<\/a>\u00a0last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Cowboys addressed that need Friday night in the middle of the second round by trading a fifth-round pick, No. 152 overall, to the San Francisco 49ers<\/a> in exchange for linebacker Dee Winters<\/a>, a 2023 sixth-round pick out of TCU.<\/p>\n

Winters will return to his college stomping grounds in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex after starting 27 games for the 49ers across the last two seasons, including all 17 games in 2025. He totaled career-highs in tackles (101), interceptions (one, a pick-six of Philip Rivers<\/a>), passes defensed (five) and tackles for loss (eight) in 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Let’s take a look at trade grades to see how each squad made out in this Day 2 draft deal.<\/p>\n

Dallas Cowboys: B+<\/p>\n

Dallas desperately needed juice at the middle linebacker spot after a disastrous 2025 from Murray, Jack Sanborn<\/a> and Logan Wilson<\/a> at that spot. Winters’ 101 tackles led San Francisco after he started all 17 games, and he’s a steady player with good eye discipline who goes where he’s supposed to be on a given play. Yes, that sounds elementary, but that’s how bad things were at that spot in Dallas.<\/p>\n

This deal is also a low-risk move for the Cowboys, since it’s a fifth-round pick for a player entering the final year of his rookie deal, with a cap hit of just $3.71 million. Dallas area fans who also root for TCU get the added bonus of seeing a Horned Frog legend return home. Winters earned 2022 College Football<\/a> Playoff Fiesta Bowl semifinal MVP honors after hauling in a pick-six off of then-Michigan Wolverines quarterback J.J. McCarthy<\/a> in an upset victory.\u00a0<\/p>\n

San Francisco 49ers: B+<\/p>\n

This deal was a win-win. The 49ers get a draft pick one round higher than they selected Winters during the 2023 NFL Draft. This move clears the path for San Francisco 2025 third-round pick Nick Martin<\/a> to start in 2026. During his rookie year out of Oklahoma State, he played in seven games and recorded 11 tackles.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Imagn Images FRISCO, Texas — The Dallas Cowboys entered the 2026 NFL Draft with a laundry list of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[99367,99369,99368,87883,99366,99365,102,113,82507,104,103,17279,2638,80,6183,99370,99364,99371,96754,8163],"class_list":["post-265678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-49ers-defense","tag-49ers-news","tag-49ers-trade","tag-cowboys-draft-picks","tag-cowboys-trade-news","tag-cowboys-trades","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-dallas-cowboys-defense","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-dee-winters","tag-jerry-jones","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-draft","tag-nfl-draft-day-2","tag-nfl-draft-news","tag-nfl-draft-second-round","tag-nfl-draft-trades","tag-tcu-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}