The trade deadline of 2024 wasn’t as silent as originally assumed for the Dallas Cowboys. Instead, the team went out to acquire some lacking talent. Specifically, the addition of Jonathan Mingo to the Cowboys wide receiver room. Although his stats seem average at best, there’s a bigger, underlying reason to acquire this trade. It has less to do with the 2024 football season and more to do with what happens after.
Cowboys Wide Receiver Room Adds Jonathan Mingo as a Future Play
The Youngest Wide Receiver Room in Football
Over the last few years, the Dallas Cowboys have been slowly acquiring young talent at wide receiver. With Brandin Cooks injured and CeeDee Lamb collecting his first real contract check, all of the other players in this room are still on their rookie contract. Many are still shaping into the wide receivers they can be in the future. But almost all of them have a lot of work to do.
Cooks, who is now able to move off of Injured Reserve, was a reliable WR2 for the few games he played this season. Yet, with this injury and with his contract up in a few months, he might not be a guaranteed return. Lamb is highly talented and the future of the Cowboys organization. Jalen Tolbert, another young receiver, is showing some promise this year. But outside of those three, there isn’t enough. Especially with Cooks still injured and Tolbert struggling with separation. So there’s an immediate need for Mingo coming into this Cowboys wide receiver room.
How Jonathan Mingo Compared to Other Wide Receivers
Mingo played 1.5 years with a very bad Carolina Panthers team, so his stats aren’t going to be impressive. However, even with that said, they are exceptionally lower than those of the current Cowboys and receivers even in his original Panthers team. Mingo’s pass catching rate falls at a 50.5% for 2023 and a 46.1% so far in 2024. This puts him the lowest on his team. Again, this is working off of a small sample size with only 26 targets this season.
The Cowboys wide receivers are as follows: CeeDee Lamb with a 63.0% catch rate and Jalen Tolbert with a 69.7% catch rate. Both Brandin Cooks and Jalen Brooks have smaller sample sizes, but Cooks had a 47% catch rate before his injury, while Brooks is at a 35% rate. It’s worth noting that Cooks had a 66.7% catch rate last year and that Dak Prescott hasn’t exactly been his best this season. With stats like these, the real reason for drafting Mingo seems foggy, but it’s actually clear.
The Cowboys Believe They Don’t Have a Broken System
The old saying is, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Jerry Jones believes that the Cowboys aren’t a broken team. In his weekly interview with a local radio station on November 5, 2024, Jones said:
“We’re going to have to have it from within to get where we all want to go . . . we’re in a really tight window with our record right now as far as our goals of getting into the playoffs and having a team that can really compete at the highest levels. We’ve added to that by losing our quarterback. So we’re going to have to do something that’s a storybook-type of scenario.”
The goal isn’t to completely rebuild an entire team. Jones and the rest of the Cowboys administration believes they need to add the necessary pieces to make the team they currently have successful. They believe a few small changes could grow and impact this team. So, part of this move is to help benefit the defeated Cowboys wide receiver room. But the bigger part is to fill the future of this program with talent they can grow and shape in 2025 and 2026. If Jonathan Mingo can grow, then the potential for the future of this team is truly unlimited.
Main Image: Daniel Bartel – USA Today Sports
