Dallas Cowboys not done at WR? Jaxon Smith-Njigba 4th of top 5 draft prospects to visit
The Dallas Cowboys made a huge splashwith acquisition of wide receiver Brandin Cooks in a trade with the Houston Texans.
The Cowboys gave up a fifth-round pick and a sixth-round pick in 2024 to acquire Cooks and guaranteed him $12 million in 2023.
The move scratched a season-long itch for a Cowboys team that never recovered from the decision to trade Amari Cooper to the Cleveland Browns.
They tried to trade for Cooks during the 2022 season but couldn’t come to terms with the Texans. They flirted with Odell Beckham Jr. before coming to terms with T.Y. Hilton for the final month of the 2023 season.
The Cowboys went into the off season admittedly looking to add juice to the receiver corps and tacitly admitting they didn’t do enough to replace Cooper.
Cooks solved that problem but the Cowboys clearly aren’t done trying to address the position.
The team has already hosted three potential first-round prospects on visits to the headquarters in Frisco, including TCU’s Quentin Johnston, Boston College’s Zay Flowers and Tennessee’s Jalin Hyatt.
And they are continuing to do their due diligence at the position this week by hosting Ohio State star Jaxon Smith-Njigba at the Star in Frisco.
Because Smith-Njigba went to Rockwall High School, his visit to the Cowboys is classified as a local Dallas area visit.
It’s unlikely Smith-Njigba will be on the board when the Cowboys pick at No. 26 in the first round.
Despite missing most of the 2022 season with a hamstring injury, Smith-Njigba is widely considered the top receiver prospect.
His best season was in 2021 when caught 95 passes for 1,606 yards with nine touchdowns.
The Cowboys are simply doing their homework in case he falls to them.
What’s more is that they have now had visits with four of the top five receivers in draft with Smith-Njigba, Johnston, Flowers and Hyatt.
Add in North Carolina’s Josh Downs, Ole Miss’s Jonathan Mingo and SMU’s Rashee Rice, and the Cowboys are casting a wide net on receivers projected to go in the first four rounds.
It’s a huge message to the receivers on the roster not named Cooks or CeeDee Lamb, who led the team in receiving with 107 catches for 1,359 yards and nine touchdowns.
The team expects a bounce back year from Michael Gallup. The Cowboys admittedly expected too much from Gallup in 2022 in his first season coming off a torn ACL.
He missed the first three games with rehab and finished with a disappointing 39 catches for 424 yards and four touchdowns in 14 games.
Jalen Tolbert, a third-round pick in 2022, is also on notice after catching just two passes for 12 yards as a rookie and being inactive for eight games.
The Cowboys say they put too much on Tolbert’s plate last season and believe he will respond better in 2023.
But their approach to the 2023 NFL suggests the Cowboys are still looking to add to the position and won’t be waiting around.
This story was originally published April 11, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
