Was the trade for veteran wide receiver Brandin Cooks enough for the Dallas Cowboys to improve upon the roster responsible for last season's Divisional Round loss to the San Francisco 49ers?
CeeDee Lamb, Cooks and Michael Gallup are an upgrade over the top three wideouts the Cowboys had a season ago. But they still need another guy to step up as that fourth option.
So where do things stand in the mind of the Cowboys' front office?
"We're always looking to improve," personnel boss Will McClay said of the Cowboys' receiving corps when asked about the idea of bringing back T.Y. Hilton, among other ideas. "We feel like we have players on the roster that are improving. We talked about the maturation process of players like Simi [Fehoko], [Jalen] Tolbert. We have guys that have been here for a year, and we're looking for those guys to step up."
As we express here, interpreting that remark as a “Yes, we plan on signing vet free-agent receivers!” is a mistake.
Tolbert, the 2022 third-round draft pick, who was selected with the hopes of helping fill the void of Amari Cooper, ended up being a healthy scratch for the majority of his rookie year, as he only played in eight games and recorded just two catches for 12 yards.
While Fehoko is a different story, a former fifth-round pick who didn't come into The Star with the same expectations as Tolbert did. But he has barely been featured since arriving in Dallas in the 2021 NFL Draft. Fehoko played in just five games last season, recording just three receptions for 24 yards.
There are other names working inside The Star, including still-young journeyman Antonio Callaway, who had productive years in Cleveland before falling on hard times. Dallas signed him to the practice squad for a look-see and added him to the 90-man roster this off-season. A source tells CowboysSI.com that Callaway wouldn’t still be here if “we didn’t like him.”
And because he’s here while other free agent vets like Sammy Watkins, Jarvis Landry, and T.Y. Hilton are still available? That says something about Callaway, though when we construct a pecking order, it’s also important to note that McClay’s stated back-end pecking order featured Fehoko and Tolbert ahead of Callaway.
So for now? The wait-and-see approach is meant to give Tolbert and Fehoko every opportunity to prove themselves. If that doesn't work out, then Dallas can move - down the roster or outside the building - to fill the need.
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