The smoke behind the Osa Odighizuwa trade rumors was real after all.
According to Tom Pelissero and Ian Rapoport, the Dallas Cowboys are trading Odighizuwa to the San Francisco 49ers. A 2026 third-round pick is going back to Dallas.
While the defensive tackle room got crowded, trading good players on a defense that is still searching for a starter at linebacker, cornerback, and potentially edge, depending on how Donovan Ezeiruaku recovers from labrum surgery, is a very questionable move.
The Dallas Cowboys have traded star DT Osa Odighziuwa to the 49ers
Not to beat a dead horse, but the Cowboys traded their best defensive player to an NFC rival in August and immediately regretted it. While Odighizuwa may not be half the player that Micah Parsons is, it's pretty baffling that Dallas has doubled down just months later.
A 2021 third-round pick, Odighizuwa has developed into one of the best pass-rushing interior defenders in the NFL. He's only tallied 17.5 sacks in six seasons, but he's logged 59 quarterback hits and 155 pressures over the last three seasons.
That production made Dallas comfortable giving him a four-year, $80 million extension with $52 million guaranteed just last offseason.
However, the front office has completely remade the DT room since then, acquiring Kenny Clark in the Parsons trade before trading for All-Pro Quinnen Williams before the 2025 trade deadline.
There are questions about how Odighizuwa fits in Christian Parker's scheme, but everyone assumed that the Cowboys would find a way to make it work. That did not come to pass, and Dallas now has a Day 2 pick to work with in next month's draft.
This is begging to blow up in Jerry Jones' face. The 49ers badly needed a pass-rush presence in the trenches, and Odighizuwa is one of the best at that, while the Cowboys have been bad at drafting defensive players for multiple years.