5 players the Dallas Cowboys gave up on way too early

3. Amari Cooper, WR

Looking back on it, even just a year in the rearview, I still cannot fathom what the Dallas Cowboys were thinking when they traded away wide receiver Amari Cooper for a sack of chips during the 2022 offseason.

Although he’s been considered underrated for the majority of his career, it’s hard to fathom that the team that employed him could have possibly underrated the skills, ability, and impact of a player like Amari Cooper. What he has lacked throughout his NFL career in flash, he has more than made up for with consistency.

The Cowboys struck a trade with the Raiders in 2018 to acquire Amari Cooper, one of the bigger in-season blockbuster deals you will typically see. Cooper had an immediately positive impact on the Dallas Cowboys, catching 53 passes for 725 yards and six touchdowns in his first nine games with the team.

He would rack up over 1,000 yards in each of the 2019 and 2020 seasons for the Cowboys before his production took a slight dip in the 2021 season. That was understandable considering Dak Prescott missed most of the year.

The Cowboys figured that the return of Prescott in 2022 would mean the raising of all boats in the harbor, but they were wrong. Prescott struggled with throwing too many interceptions last season, and I can’t help but think that was due largely to not having a player like Amari Cooper to have in tandem with CeeDee Lamb.

Why you would make your wide receiver position intentionally worse when you’ve invested so much at the QB position, I’ll never understand.

The Cowboys gave up on Cooper who had a very good first season with the Cleveland Browns in 2022, catching 78 passes for 1,160 yards and a career-high nine touchdowns. Seems like the Cowboys could have used that production and could use it going forward.