Dallas Cowboys 7-Round Mock Draft: Trading Gallup and Trading Back

All offseason we’ve been dropping Dallas Cowboys 7-Round Mock Drafts to highlight some of the many scenarios Dallas could encounter this April. Today we package two trades that could go a long way in improving some of the weaknesses of this team.

The Dallas Cowboys are in the rare position to absorb costs. While they’re not flush with cash, they are much more stable than most teams. In fact, they rank in the top-12 in available cap space this offseason based on the salary cap floor and carryover.

Whether they agree to a long-term deal or are forced to pay via franchise tag, they still have to account for Dak Prescott, but even that can be managed through converting base salaries and other common accounting tricks to free up cash.

In this Dallas Cowboys 7-round mock draft we trade Michael Gallup and back from 10

As such, teams that hope to trade away productive players this offseason are facing a rough market. Only about half the teams can even absorb a veteran contract and most of those teams are rebuilding and have little interest in a veteran.

So the Dallas Cowboys are a bit of a rarity here.  They have funds available to absorb costs and they have a desire to win right now. In fact – they have a NEED to win right now since the window is wide open for them to dominate the NFC East for the foreseeable future.

PFF recently have them as a top-5 team in their offseason Improvement Index that predicts year to year improvement based on player WAR. Check it out here: Cowboys a top-5 improved team heading into 2021.

As always we’ll be leaning on The Draft Network for their mock draft simulator so we can properly appraise value and keep things realistic. We’re also using game tape to evaluate and various scouting reports for our player profiles.

This Dallas Cowboys 7-Round Mock Draft starts out with a trade…

The Dallas Cowboys send Pick 10 and WR Michael Gallup to New England for CB Stephon Gilmore, Pick 15, and Pick 46.

The Dallas Cowboys immediately scratch cornerback off their list of needs when they trade for former All-Pro CB Stephon Gilmore. Gilmore, on the trade market since last season, is on the last year of his deal. To make it work, Dallas extends the 30-year-old Gilmore 2-seasons, fully guaranteeing his $7.343 million from this season, and pushing the cap hit back to when the TV money pushes the cap significantly up.

Gilmore, who has loads of experience playing on an island in New England’s Cover 1/Cover 3 system, is a perfect fit in Quinn’s defense and a great match opposite Trevon Diggs.

The Patriots are in need of a WR so Michael Gallup fills an immediate hole for the Pats as well. Plus they seem to have their eyes on one of the top-4 pass catchers (who will probably all be gone by 15) and according to mock drafts, the like Micah Parsons as well (who could go anywhere from 5-20). Moving up is probably their only chance to get one.

Both moves also allow the respective teams leeway in the first round. NE won’t feel tempted to reach early on WR and the Dallas Cowboys won’t feel compelled to draft Patrick Surtain or Caleb Farely.

Note: Surtain is a high floor/low ceiling pick and Farley being a low floor/high ceiling pick. Neither is a clear cut choice.

Pro Football Focus recently listed both Gallup and Gilmore as players on their “trades that make sense article” They have Michael Gallup going for a high 3rd and high 4th and they have Gilmore going for a middle 3rd. So we can look at this trade as Dallas getting the better value for trading back, but NE getting the better deal on the player swap. Either way, it equals out in compensation.

Again, the market for Gilmore is much smaller than normal years since money is a league-wide issue.

Which brings us, finally, to the Dallas Cowboys first round pick.