Quinnen Williams Trade Grades For Cowboys Jets Blockbuster

The Dallas Cowboys are 3-5-1 after losing two in a row, but Jerry Jones has decided to go all in to try to save their season. The Cowboys owner pulled off a blockbuster trade to acquire three-time Pro Bowler Quinnen Williams from the New York Jets on Tuesday, just hours ahead of the NFL's 4 p.m. ET trade deadline. To make the deal happen, the Cowboys are sending a 2026 second-round pick, a 2027 first-round pick and defensive tackle Mazi Smith to New York. Now that we have the details of the deal, let's grade the trade: Through the first nine weeks of the season, the Cowboys have had one of the worst defenses in the NFL: They've given up the second-most points per game (30.8), the second-most total yards per...

If the Cowboys are going to turn things around, they had to do something and Jones attempted to do that by swinging for the fences in a deal for Williams, who is one of... The addition of the three-time Pro Bowler is a monstrous upgrade on the defensive line for the Cowboys. One reason the defense has been so bad is because the defensive line hasn't been able to generate any pressure, which is a big reason why opposing quarterbacks have a 112.6 passer rating against... Dallas has also struggled to stop the run because they don't have anyone in the middle who can plug things up, but now, with one trade, they added a superstar who should be able... The New York Jets are cleaning house. Within an hour of trading Sauce Gardner, the Jets are now sending defensive tackle Quinnen Williams to the Dallas Cowboys at the 2025 NFL trade deadline.

If the Gardner trade was not evidence enough, the Jets cemented their full rebuild by dealing Williams. New York's 2025 season had already been going as poorly as possible and has now sent its two best players packing in exchange for more draft picks. The Williams trade would have shocked on its own, but it merely adds to the Jets' drama after their Gardner deal. It will be a long final nine games for New York fans. While the Jets have all but packed it in, the Cowboys are now clearly in desperation mode. Despite being just 3-5-1 ahead of its Week 10 bye, Dallas remains committed to turning its 2025 season around and making a run for the playoffs in the second half of the season.

With so much to dissect in the Gardner trade, Williams' move is getting overshadowed ahead of the 2025 NFL trade deadline. Regardless, the move will almost certainly have a profound impact on both franchises over the next two years. The Dallas Cowboys have made another blockbuster trade, this time for New York Jets defensive lineman Quinnen Williams. Below are the trade grades for the Dallas Cowboys and New York Jets. Jets Blockbuster II: New York is trading three-time Pro-Bowl DT Quinnen Williams to the Cowboys, sources tell ESPN. First CB Sauce Gardner and now, on the same day, Williams.

pic.twitter.com/swQJGKRNKm — Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 4, 2025 On Monday, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones teased that Dallas has “made a trade” ahead of Tuesday’s 4 p.m. deadline. On Tuesday, that deal surfaced with the Cowboys acquiring Williams. Turns out that Jerry Jones wasn't talking up the Dallas Cowboys' NFL trade deadline options just for show.

The Cowboys kicked off Tuesday with a relatively minor move in their acquisition of linebacker Logan Wilson from the Cincinnati Bengals. With that, many assumed that Jones was mostly done dealing. But Dallas dropped a seismic move on the rest of the NFL by securing defensive tackle Quinnen Williams from the New York Jets in exchange for a 2027 first-round pick, 2026 second-round pick and... With Williams aboard, the Cowboys hope to have a player capable of turning around the team's defensive fortunes this season and beyond. New York, meanwhile, is going for a full teardown that few could have seen coming. How did each team fare in the deal?

Here are our marks for each team. Quinnen Williams is the latest member of the Dallas Cowboys. The Cowboys made the big defensive move as expected at the trade deadline, with Jerry Jones taking advantage of the Jets wanting to get rid of big salaries and talent to match. New York continued its fire sale, moving Williams just after sending star CB Sauce Gardner to the Indianapolis Colts. For Dallas, the Williams acquisition comes on the heels of the team's move to bring in Bengals LB Logan Wilson early Tuesday morning. NFL TRADE DEADLINE HQ: Live tracker | Grades | Predictions

Here's a breakdown of Dallas' acquisition of Williams from both perspectives: The New York Jets are blowing everything up, right back to the foundation. In a flurry of deals on Tuesday the Jets traded Sauce Gardner to the Colts, and now they’ve sent DT Quinnen Williams to the Dallas Cowboys. In exchange the Cowboys will send a 2nd round pick in 2026, a 1st round pick in 2027, and send DT Mazi Smith to New York in the deal. It’s a big time move for both teams. The Cowboys have been preaching the need to get better against the run, and you’d be hard pressed to find a better run stopped available in a trade.

Williams is one of the best run stopping interior linemen in the NFL — who also possesses the ability to collapse the pocket from the middle. This was something he did to phenomenal effect in 2022 when he amasses a career-high 12.0 sacks from the inside, becoming a foundation of the Jets defense. Dealing Gardner was somewhat expected, but sending away Williams too is a bit of a shock. It’s proof that new head coach Aaron Glenn and GM Darren Mougey want to change the culture inside the locker room — and that means getting rid of almost everyone who played a part... This really achieves something for both teams: The Cowboys get the run stopper they’ve been desperate for in the middle, and someone who can lessen the loss of Micah Parsons, which is still being... Meanwhile the Jets gain even more draft assets to use in the future, hopefully finding a way to select players who will finally bring them back into relevancy.

Kudos where its due to Dallas for keeping their first round picks intact in 2026. It’s a down year for Dallas, and should the team miss the playoffs it will land somewhere in the teens. This way the Cowboys gamble on themselves to improve in 2027 when the payment comes due, and really gave up what’s tantamount to two second round picks when you factor in that teams typically... Jerry Jones pulled off his splash trade after spending most of Monday telling anyone who would listen that he had a few notable deals in the works. The Cowboys landed star defensive tackle Quinnen Williams in a blockbuster trade with the Jets hours before Tuesday’s NFL trade deadline. The Cowboys sent a 2027 first-round pick to New York, but the team will have to relinquish the higher pick between theirs and the one it gained from the Packers in the trade with...

Dallas also gave up a ’26 second-round pick and defensive tackle Mazi Smith for Williams’s services. Dallas has plenty of catching up to do in the standings but now has hopes of a second-half turnaround after the defensive reinforcements with the arrival of Williams and linebacker Logan Wilson, whom the... More importantly, this savvy trade could actually help the Cowboys in the long run. SI NFL Newsletter. Get MMQB's Free Newsletter. dark.

Sign Up This is the Jets’ second blockbuster trade of the day. They clearly want a fresh slate after trading Williams and sending star cornerback Sauce Gardner to the Colts. Instead of the Cowboys loading up on draft picks, it’s the Jets who want to acquire as many selections to land a franchise quarterback. The Dallas Cowboys made two acquisitions at the NFL trade deadline to improve the team as it tries to make a playoff push. The big deal netted defensive tackle Quinnen Williams from the New York Jets in exchange for a 2027 first-round pick, 2026 second-round pick and defensive tackle Mazi Smith.

The Cowboys also acquired linebacker Logan Wilson from the Cincinnati Bengals for a 2026 seventh-round pick. Here’s how pundits graded the moves, particularly the Williams trade: I’m glad that Jerry Jones has recently become obsessed with solving Dallas’ run defense. It’s a worthy pursuit. This was not a good way to go about it, though. The Cowboys sent a 2026 second-round pick and a 2027 first-round pick, along with defensive tackle Mazi Smith, to the Jets in return for Quinnen Williams.

Williams is 27 years old and still a quality player, but it’s worth being detailed here. Williams has one All-Pro nod in six seasons as a pro, as well as three consecutive Pro Bowl appearances. He’s a great player who at his best has been an absolute game-wrecker. His 2023 season, in which he had a pressure rate of 16.3%, remains the most disruptive pass-rush season for a defensive tackle in the Next Gen Stats database (since 2016). © 2025 BVM Sports. Best Version Media, LLC.

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