Forgotten failed trade makes Cowboys’ CB concerns more frustrating

The Dallas Cowboys entered 2022 with a legitimate starting trio of cornerbacks. While not the premier group in the NFL, a lot of teams would love to have Trevon Diggs, Anthony Brown and Jourdan Lewis as their three starters.

Add in the fact that Diggs, Brown and Lewis have ample experience together, and their value only increases. Similar to the offensive line, the importance of roster continuity in the secondary cannot be overstated.

While a solid starting trio, the Cowboys rolled the dice by not adding much experience behind them. Banking on Nahshon Wright and Kelvin Joseph to play substantial roles in the event of injury after they showed very little (some would say nothing) as rookies was quite the gamble by the front office.

And let’s be honest: you’re lying through your teeth if you foresaw fifth-round pick DaRon Bland becoming a Defensive Rookie of the Year candidate.

Fast forward to the present, and Brown and Lewis are out for the year, and the Cowboys are in a bind at cornerback. Incredibly, Bland’s become a reliable starter, while Wright has leapfrogged Joseph for the third starting spot.

Of course, the Cowboys didn’t have to be in this position. If you remember, they let a quality cornerback — former Chief-turned-49er Charvarius Ward — slip through their fingertips in one of the worst trades in recent franchise history.

The Cowboys should be kicking themselves for trading Charvarius Ward.

The Cowboys were smart enough to sign Ward as an undrafted free agent out of Middle Tennessee State in 2018. With Byron Jones (throwback), Chidobe Awuzie, Brown and Lewis — then third- and second-year players — on the roster, Dallas jettisoned Ward to Kansas City for offensive lineman Parker Ehinger.

Teams do reckless things when acting out of desperation, and that’s exactly how Dallas operated after center Travis Frederick was diagnosed with Guillain-BarréSyndrome, and backup Marcus Martin suffered a toe injury in preseason.

At the time, trading a UDFA who was likely to be buried on the depth chart behind four capable cornerbacks for a then-third-year offensive linemen who had nearly 300 snaps under his belt wasn’t crazy.

The only problem? Ehinger never played a snap for the Cowboys, and Ward’s blossomed into a quality cornerback in the league. It wasn’t until Ward’s second year that he became a starter for the Chiefs. From there, his career took off.

In 2019, Ward logged two interceptions and 10 passes defended. In two more seasons with Kansas City, Ward added two more picks and 16 passes defended to his resume, to go with 118 tackles while playing great run defense.

Ward parlayed his excellent run in KC into a three-year, $42 million contract with San Francisco as a free agent last offseason. You might’ve heard that the 49ers flaunt the NFL’s premier defense, and Ward’s been a huge part of that with 11 passes defended, an 82.1 coverage grade, and a 91.8 run-defense grade, per PFF.

Hindsight is obviously 20/20, and it’s impossible to say if Dallas would’ve been able to keep Diggs, Brown, Lewis and Ward together. It’s just frustrating to think the Cowboys had a future stud on their hands, and traded him for an unproven lineman who never even plugged the hole he was brought in to fill.

If Dallas hadn’t traded Ward, would they have reached on Kelvin Joseph in the 2021 draft? Would they have re-signed Lewis, who hasn’t had a PFF grade above 70.0 since 2018? Would they have re-signed Brown, who’s allowed a 97.3 passer rating when targeted in his career?

Maybe, maybe not. But you can’t tell us the front office isn’t kicking themselves for giving up on Ward essentially before his NFL career started.

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