{"id":266984,"date":"2026-04-26T12:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T12:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/266984\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T12:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T12:08:15","slug":"cowboys-news-recapping-the-dallas-draft-and-trades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/266984\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowboys news: Recapping the Dallas draft and trades"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Cowboys<\/a>\u00a0ticked off a majority of of their most-frequently-cited needs with their first six picks in the 2026 NFL draft using five of those selections to bolster the much-aligned defense.<\/p>\n

Safety? They got the best one in the class. Edge rusher? Dallas picked three of them, though one projects to be used more like a linebacker and another should play more on the interior. High-potential cornerback? Got one of those, too.<\/p>\n

Linebacker was the only Cowboys roster slot not addressed through the first six rounds. But with the team\u2019s final pick being a seventh-rounder, it was always going to be a dart throw at best. (Even more so when LSU\u2019s Harold Perkins Jr.<\/a>, the best \u2018backer left on the board, was taken by the Falcons just three spots before Dallas came on the clock.)<\/p>\n

Sometimes a pick in the seventh lands a player who goes on to make a meaningful contribution. Current swing tackle Nathan Thomas was a seventh-rounder in 2024; Noah Brown<\/a>, Jay Ratliff<\/a>, Patrick Crayton, Brock Marion, and Leon Lett have all been taken there during the Jerry Jones era. Heck, Hall of Famers Bob Hayes and Rayfield Wright were both seventh-round selections once upon a time.<\/p>\n

Time will tell if East Carolina wide receiver Anthony Smith, the Cowboys\u2019 pick at No. 218, will follow in their footsteps.<\/p>\n

Official pre-draft scouting reports on Smith are few and far between, but a check of his resume shows that after four sparsely-used seasons at North Carolina State, Smith broke out in 2024 and 2025 for the Pirates. He ended his six-year college career with 118 catches for 2,095 yards and 16 touchdowns.<\/p>\n

Smith really showed out for East Carolina in their Military Bowl win in December, hauling in four passes for 156 yards and two scores, earning the game\u2019s MVP honors.<\/p>\n

His speed is graded as elite- having been clocked with a 4.40 40- and he has shown good explosiveness and agility, tools that the Cowboys will surely put to use as he begins his NFL career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Cowboys\u00a0ticked off a majority of of their most-frequently-cited needs with their first six picks in the 2026 NFL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[21872,10254,99541,34582,1044,102,113,104,103,17279,7710,46362,47829,78204,99688,33637,16217,18086,10363,80,10401,78535,10247,9970,17183,7698],"class_list":{"0":"post-266984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","9":"tag-49ers","10":"tag-anthony-smith","11":"tag-caleb-downs","12":"tag-cowboys","13":"tag-dallas","14":"tag-dallas-cowboys","15":"tag-dallas-headlines","16":"tag-dallas-news","17":"tag-dee-winters","18":"tag-demarvion-overshown","19":"tag-harold-perkins-jr","20":"tag-jaishawn-barham","21":"tag-jalen-thompson","22":"tag-jay-ratliff","23":"tag-jordyn-brooks","24":"tag-mac-jones","25":"tag-malik-hooker","26":"tag-miami-dolphins","27":"tag-nfl","28":"tag-noah-brown","29":"tag-p-j-locke","30":"tag-patriots","31":"tag-san-francisco","32":"tag-stephen-jones","33":"tag-the-cowboys"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266984","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=266984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}