FRISCO, Texas — On Sunday, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said the team would only make a trade to bolster their chances if a difference-making player like Hall of Famer Deion Sanders was available.
Jones has also said in the past, “just cause I said it don’t make it so.”
In keeping with the theme of the latter, not the former, the Cowboys acquired defensive tackle Johnathan Hankins in a trade with the Las Vegas Raiders, sources confirmed. The Cowboys also got a 2024 seventh-round pick in the deal while shipping sending the Raiders a 2023 sixth-round pick.
As well as the Cowboys have played on defense this season, their obvious weakness has been stopping the run.
The Cowboys have the league’s sixth-best defense and are first in sacks but rank 20th in run defense, allowing 4.4 yards per carry.
The Cowboys gave up 117 yards on the ground to the Detroit Lions one week after giving up 139 yards against the Philadelphia Eagles and now they face a Chicago Bears team on Sunday that averages 5.2 yards per carry.
Opponents are forcing the run against the Cowboys to avoid facing their ferocious passing attack.
What’s also true is the will face a number of top running backs and top rushing offenses the rest of the way, including the Bears, the Vikings and running back Dalvin Cook, the Eagles, the New York Giants and Saquon Barkley, the Indianapolis Colts and Jonathan Taylor and the Tennessee Titans and Derrick Henry.
At 6-foot-3, 340 pounds, the 10-year veteran Hankins, who was a second-round pick of the Giants in 2013, has the size to bolster the Cowboys up front. He will join Quinton Bohanna, 6-4, 330, as the team’s biggest tackles to hopefully shore up the run defense.
