DALLAS — You barely had time to line the bird cage with my Tuesday column offering the faintest praise to the Cowboys’ brain trust for not going all in with two first-round picks to get Maxx Crosby. Within a few short days, the group has left me baffled once again as to whether a real plan of action exists to make this defense what it needs to be in 2026. Dallas has created as many needs as it ...

Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby reacts as he takes the field to face the Denver Broncos at Allegiant Stadium on Dec. 7, 2025, in Las Vegas.

Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS

DALLAS — You barely had time to line the bird cage with my Tuesday column offering the faintest praise to the Cowboys’ brain trust for not going all in with two first-round picks to get Maxx Crosby. Within a few short days, the group has left me baffled once again as to whether a real plan of action exists to make this defense what it needs to be in 2026.

Dallas has created as many needs as it has filled. Suddenly, the team is short of depth at defensive tackle and a player that led the Cowboys in pressures last season is gone.

Before we get to the Cowboys helping out San Francisco with one of its greater needs (the 49ers appreciate Osa, thanks), let’s deal with Crosby and see if we have this straight. The Cowboys were interested enough to offer a one and a two for the Raiders pass rusher on Monday, but the Baltimore Ravens beat them to the punch by trading a pair of first-round picks. Then Baltimore backed out of the deal, citing a failed physical, and signed Trey Hendrickson instead.

Very shady business by the Ravens. Everyone knew Crosby just had knee surgery, but that’s a league problem. Suddenly, Crosby is back on the market and the price is falling, but “a person with knowledge of the team’s thinking” tells the Dallas Morning News' Calvin Watkins the Cowboys are out on Crosby, partially because they have traded for Green Bay’s Rashan Gary. As the week rolls along, the Cowboys dismiss a pair of defensive tackles — Osa Odighizuwa to the 49ers for a third-round pick and Solomon Thomas to Tennessee for some shuffling in the seventh round — and reclaim Tyrus Wheat, who had wandered off to Detroit for a year.

This convoluted mess along the D-line, plus the signing of a pair of safeties, is how the Cowboys have jumped into free agency in a season in which Cowboys owner Jerry Jones vowed to get serious about spending real dollars on real players. The only evidence of that is the signing of former Cardinals safety Jalen Thompson, and I don’t want to make him out to be Larry Wilson (look him up). Beyond that, any real improvement is still all about those first two-round picks which have nothing to do with free agency.

Crosby, for his part, has announced he is a Raider and the club has said he’s off the trade market. We can only hope the Raiders are lying as much as The Person With Knowledge of the Team’s Thinking here in Dallas.

If Crosby can be had for a one and possibly the three that was just obtained in the Odighizuwa trade, how do the Cowboys not pull the trigger on that deal? They were down to do a 1 and a 2 72 hours ago. What has changed beyond the addition of Gary, who is a nice player but not Crosby? You need about eight good players across the defensive front, and Dallas knows it will lose its sack leader, Jadeveon Clowney. Donovan Ezeiruaku just had hip surgery and won’t be available until August, if then. This is the defensive line that’s going to erase last year’s 30-points-a-game disaster?

If this offseason is about tiptoeing through the free agency process and not getting hurt — same as it ever was — then no one should have paid any attention to what Jones was saying in Indianapolis on his famous bus. Which we sort of know, anyway, as we approach the finish line on four decades of this stuff.

The idea of moving players, good ones like Odighizuwa, because of a coordinator’s fit — the Cowboys have gone down this road before, only to see those coaches gone in two or three years and the need for a certain style or size of player on the move again. Besides, one Cowboys insider said a player like Osa fits any scheme an NFL team plays.

The problem with writing about any of this is the fluidity of the free-agency process. The Cowboys could end up trading for Crosby 15 minutes after you read this, which is fine. It won’t be the first column of mine to grow old before its time. Won’t even be the first Cowboys column of this week to meet that fate.

My apologies for thinking this club was behaving responsibly when the week began, recognizing that it has massive needs in all three areas of the defense. Doesn’t this team need at least two linebackers, three when DeMarvion Overshown gets hurt again? Instead, I’m not sure they recognize much of anything other than the hope that in handing the reins to Christian Parker, some of the Eagles’ success of this century rubs off on a franchise that hasn’t had any.