Jerry Jones Had Brutally Honest Quote About Cowboys' Defense as Trade Deadline Looms

Liam McKeone | Oct 27, 2025

With the trade deadline a week away Cowboys owner Jerry Jones gave a brutally honest evaluation of the team's bad defense. / Robert Deutsch-Imagn Images

The Cowboys lost on Sunday to the Broncos in large part due to another terrible defensive effort. Denver ran roughshod over the Dallas defense—literally. The Broncos notched 179 yards rushing on the day and averaged a whopping 6.4 yards per carry. To pile on, Bo Nix threw for 274 yards and four touchdowns to push his team north of 400 total yards on the day and come away with the 44-24 win.

It's a familiar story for this year's Cowboys. Dak Prescott's offense didn't help matters on Sunday but the defense is so leaky they have zero margin for error in every other facet of the game. The roster at large is talented enough to make things interesting against most teams but only if the defense puts up even the slightest bit of opposition. So far this season they've failed to hit that low benchmark every week.

It's part of the reason why Dallas is getting mentioned regularly in trade discussions heading into the November 4 deadline. But Jerry Jones doesn't seem to think the woes infecting his team are easily solved and gave a brutally honest quote about the Cowboys' defense that will dampen the hopes of any fan thinking a big move is in the works.

"I don't know what's realistic," Jones said while discussing the possibility of making a trade for defensive help, via ESPN's Todd Archer. "Could one better player—if we didn't pay too big a price to have a better player on defense to possibly help? I'm not trying to be cute, but that's why you'd go get him because you think that you could go help your defense. Are we one player away on defense? I think we're not. I think we're more than that away, but what we're closer to than it looks, in my mind, is executing better on defense."

The biggest issue with the quote? He isn't wrong. The Cowboys' problems are varied and plentiful. No one player will realistically solve enough of those problems and the few players who might come close will not be available. NFL stars are rarely traded midseason and, as Jones points out, the cost of acquiring such a player must be taken into the equation as well.

Many out there are undoubtedly enjoying the schadenfreude of the Cowboys going through this after trading their best defensive player in Micah Parsons. But even he couldn't single-handedly fix the run defense.

Dallas still may yet make a trade at the deadline. But Jones's frank evaluation of the defense indicates his belief that the best chance for the unit to turn it around will come from inside the organization.

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