“We’re certainly not living in a fantasy world,” Dallas Cowboys co-owner and Director of Player Personnel Stephen Jones said Monday after a 33-30 loss to the Arizona Cardinals.

It’s only fair to question if that is true. Minutes later, he said the Cowboys, 3-5, are not ruling out a trade to get better before the deadline set for Nov. 10.

“We’re convinced, we think we’re close,” Jones added. “We think we can get this ship righted and that we can have success.”

The Cowboys are close to what, exactly?

Dallas is second in an NFC East race that has no clear-cut favorite other than the New York Giants. New York is off to a strong start at 4-2-1 and has already beaten the Cowboys, which gives it the head-to-head advantage.

Let’s say the Cowboys are close to winning the division. They might even win it with a losing record. Right now, though, my money is on the Giants. And if Dallas does stumble into a division title because New York crumbles, that has more to do with the Giants than with the Cowboys.

Close to being a good team?

My answer is no.

The Cowboys are 25 games into the Brian Schottenheimer era, and they have a losing record in that stretch. Part of the reason is they’ve strung together a winning streak only once in those 25 games, when they won three in a row last November.

Other than that, they haven’t been able to stack wins. Schottenheimer said it himself earlier this season: good teams stack wins.

He said that heading into the Tampa Bay Buccaneers game. Since then, the Cowboys have failed to do it, even with a favorable stretch. They faced a Buccaneers team that was winless entering the matchup. They faced a Green Bay Packers team that has been inconsistent all season.

Most recently, they faced a 2-5 Cardinals team that went from Jacoby Brissett to Gardner Minshew at quarterback during the game. Dallas led 17-3 at halftime and still lost.

So what are the Cowboys getting close to? Winning consecutive games? They haven’t done it in the regular season, how can they expect to do it in January? Is that good enough to justify giving up future draft capital?

Buyers or sellers?

I’d go a step further. Is this team good enough to not be sellers?

If the Cowboys don’t plan to extend wide receiver George Pickens after the season, and a team calls offering a second-round pick, is that worth passing up? Especially when the alternative is giving up one of your own picks for a player who might be too little, too late for this defense.

That’s a Cowboys defense that couldn’t stop Tyler Allgeier from having a breakout game. It gave up four consecutive touchdown drives to an Arizona offense that hasn’t been explosive, yet found ways to be explosive against Dallas.

A trade isn’t going to fix a team with coaching problems on offense and defense. It isn’t going to fix a team that has become the laughingstock of the league, with fans left waiting to find out the next way the Cowboys will let them down.

Don’t expect a big move

Do I expect the Cowboys to make a trade? Not really.

It’s one thing for Jones to go on the radio and say the team is trying to save the season. It’s another to make a deal before the Indianapolis Colts game.

If the Cowboys want to be buyers, they should at least wait until Week 9. Beat the Colts, get to 4-5, and then maybe pull off a trade right before the deadline. Even if they do, I’d expect it to cost a Day 3 pick, not a first or second-rounder.

To be fair, you never know with this team. Dallas made the Jonathan Mingo trade in 2024 when all hope was lost. In 2025, it went after Quinnen Williams with a terrible defense and committed a first-round pick it owes the New York Jets in the 2027 NFL Draft.

So I do wonder what the Cowboys will end up doing before the deadline.

But this looks like a team living in a fantasy world. If they think they can salvage this, and that giving up future assets is worth it even after an embarrassing loss to the Cardinals, I have a tough time buying in.

Going into Week 8, I wrote the Cowboys might be smart to make a deal because the NFC East is wide open. But they needed to earn the right to make a trade.

They failed miserably in Week 8. They failed spectacularly.