The Cowboys helped the Seahawks to develop into a contender by trading for Joey Galloway. The receiver never came close to giving the Cowboys a return on the investment.
The Dallas Cowboys had the 19th overall pick in the 2000 draft and needed to being the process of retooling. Jerry Jones chose to be impatient, though. He negotiated a deal with the Seattle Seahawks to acquire receiver Joey Galloway for the Cowboys’ first-round picks in 2000 and 2001.
At the same time that the team was negotiating with Seattle, Jones had also decided on his replacement for departed head coach Chan Gailey. Jones went with defensive coordinator Dave Campo, who had worked his way up from secondary coach in 1989 to defensive coordinator in the late 1990s.
Campo’s comment about the Galloway signing:
We gave up a first-round pick at No. 19 this year. Hopefully, we’ll be lower than that in the draft order a year from now. And you just don’t find a Joey Galloway when you’re picking in those spots.
Give Campo an A+ for his effort in towing the company line, but the trade was ill-fated from the start. Galloway had held out for much of the 1999 season and only started four games. He had three 1,000 seasons in his first four years, but he only had 335 in 1999.
Most remember that Galloway played one half of football for Dallas in 2000, and he only managed 2,341 yards in four seasons in Dallas. Meanwhile, Seattle took Shaun Alexander with the Cowboys’ #19 pick in 2000, and the Seahawks grabbed Koren Robinson with the #9 pick in the 2001 draft. Robinson’s career never quite exploded, but he did have 1,240 yards in 2002. That was better than any season that Galloway had with either the Cowboys or the Seahawks.
Dallas also traded its third-round pick to Seattle to acquire receiver James McKnight. He ended up leading the team in receiving in 2000 but was gone after one year. The Seahawks did a little bit better with the player they chose with the Cowboys’ third-round pick: Darrell Jackson, who had three 1,000-yards seasons in his first five years in Seattle.
Want a forgettable draft? Try this one:
2(49) Dwayne Goodrich, DB, Tennessee
4(109) Kareem Larrimore, DB, West Texas A&M
5(144) Michael Wiley, RB, Ohio State
6(180) Mario Edwards, DB, Florida State
7(219) Orantes Grant, LB, Georgia
None of these players was in the league after the 2004 season. None of these players was still on the Dallas roster after the 2003 season. Edwards is the only one who became a starter, but he only recorded four career interceptions.
Most expected the Cowboys to struggle for a few years after their veterans began retiring one by one. However, the team did little to help itself with the decisions to trade valuable draft choices, even if the combination of Galloway and Rocket Ismail was a little bit intriguing at the time.
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