The Cowboys rained on Pittsburgh’s draft parade on Thursday night, by trading out of the No. 20 spot and allowing the Eagles to draft receiver Makai Lemon at a time when the Steelers had Lemon on the phone.
A report emerged that the Steelers weren’t happy with the Cowboys for giving the pick to the team that plucked Lemon. On Saturday, the powers-that-be in Dallas addressed that claim.
Via Jon Machota of The Athletic, Cowboys executive Stephen Jones said, “That’s not right.” Cowboys owner and G.M. Jerry Jones added, “Not at all.”
“I don’t want to get on their bad side,” Jerry Jones said. “I’m sorry if they’re mad. But, boy, I’ll tell you what, we’ve had it happen to us a bunch of times. It [was] traded right out from under us.”
Jerry Jones explained that the Cowboys traded up one spot in round one with the Dolphins to avoid being jumped by someone else for safety Caleb Downs. That’s how the draft works. All’s fair. There’s no reason for the Steelers to be upset. If they really wanted Lemon, they should have traded up to No. 19 or higher.
The draft is a free for all. A Battle Royale. Every team for itself. If you get jumped by a team that trades up, the last team to be pissed at is the team that traded down.
That’s how the draft goes. Anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t understand how the draft works. And if Steelers owner Art Rooney II is upset with Jerry Jones, Rooney shouldn’t be.
Our guess, with all due respect to the report that the Steelers are upset, is that the Steelers are embarrassed by the fact that their effort to draft Lemon became a public spectacle. But they aren’t — and shouldn’t be — upset with the Cowboys for exercising their absolute right to trade down.
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