Osa Odighizuwa Trade Grades: Cowboys Can’t Seem to Decide Trajectory

Dallas made its fourth trade involving a prominent defensive lineman in the past year on Wednesday, sending the 27-year-old to the 49ers for a third-round pick.

Just a year after signing Osa Odighizuwa to a four-year extension, the Cowboys traded the defensive tackles to the 49ers on Wednesday. | Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

Last March, the Cowboys handed defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa a four-year extension worth up to $80 million. A year later, Dallas is sending Odighizuwa and his sizable contract to San Francisco.

Not long after the start of the new league year on Wednesday, the Cowboys gained a third-round pick from the 49ers in the deal for Odighizuwa. This marks the fourth time—and it’s hard to keep track—in the past year that the Cowboys have been involved in a trade involving a prominent defensive lineman. In a smaller move, Dallas also executed a trade that sent defensive lineman Solomon Thomas to the Titans in exchange for seventh-round pick swaps in April.

In August, Dallas dealt edge rusher Micah Parsons to the Packers for draft picks and defensive tackle Kenny Clark. Three months later, the Cowboys acquired defensive tackle Quinnen Williams from the Jets before the trade deadline. And let’s not forget the trade for edge rusher Rashan Gary earlier this week. 

Initially, it appeared the Cowboys were content with the interior trio of Odighizuwa, Clark and Williams, but now the team must arrange other plans for the 2026 defense.

On the other side of the deal, the 49ers fill a critical need in the middle of their defense and provide help for edge rusher Nick Bosa and linebacker Fred Warner. 

Here are the grades for the latest notable trade in the NFL. 

49ers not content with relying on an inexperienced defense again

Last year, the 49ers thought they could get away with an inexperienced defense around Bosa and Warner, but the two star playmakers ended up injured for most of the 2025 season. 

With Odighizuwa, San Francisco gets a third proven playmaker on the defensive front and no longer needs immediate results from its inexperienced players, including edge rusher Mykel Williams and defensive tackle Alfred Collins, last year’s first- and second-round picks.

But the 49ers are rolling the dice here by taking on Odighizuwa’s $16 million annual average salary because he struggles against the run. Still, he’s an excellent pass rusher and the 49ers need more playmakers who can generate pressure, especially after last year’s minimal production in that department, which included a league-low 20 sacks. 

San Francisco losing a Day 2 pick and absorbing a massive contract is a steep price to pay for a pass-rushing specialist, but at least the team knows what it’s getting from Odighizuwa, who recorded 23 QB hits in back-to-back seasons. 

Grade: B

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones seems to be trying to take two paths while building his team for 2026. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

The Cowboys likely needed to make this move for cap purposes 

It’s difficult to keep track of what Cowboys owner and GM Jerry Jones is aiming to do with his team. Perhaps Jones himself has no idea in which direction he wants to lean into for 2026.

At times, it seems Jones wants to build a younger team with draft picks, which was the obvious takeaway from the Parsons trade, which landed the Cowboys two first-round picks. But most of Dallas's moves since the Parsons deal have been geared toward a quick fix, evident from the Williams and Logan Wilson trades ahead of the deadline last November. 

Then there were reports about the Cowboys offering the Raiders first- and second-round picks for edge rusher Maxx Crosby. Once Las Vegas verbally agreed to a trade with Baltimore, a move that has since been nullified, Dallas turned its attention to Gary, the former edge rusher of the Packers. 

So, it seems the Cowboys want to win now, and by doing that, the team has created a mess with the salary cap. Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and Tyler Smith restructured their contracts and the team still somehow went back into the red—the Cowboys were nearly $300,000 over the cap limit before moving Odighizuwa. 

Even with all the wheeling and dealing, the Cowboys appear destined to be another middle-of-the-pack team. This roster would have been better off just prioritizing the draft and not making moves to acquire Williams and Gary. 

But, hey, the Cowboys at least gained a third rounder from the 49ers after having a change of heart on Odighizuwa as a player. (The Commanders offered Odighizuwa more money last March.) A change of heart is something Jones can relate with because it seems he has no idea what he wants to do with his team. 

Grade: C

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