The 2024 NFL trade deadline isn’t over for another six hours. Fortunately, we already know what the weirdest trade of the season will be.
That’s the Dallas Cowboys, moments after announcing starting quarterback Dak Prescott would be placed on injured reserve, making a deal to bolster their wideout corps. With one of the league’s worst wideouts.
Jerry Jones shipped a fourth round pick to the Carolina Panthers in exchange for a seventh-rounder and Jonathan Mingo, a player who has averaged 22.5 receiving yards per game in 1.5 seasons of NFL play. He’ll be counted on to buttress CeeDee Lamb and Jake Ferguson in the Dallas passing attack as a 3-5 team turns to Cooper Rush in an entirely too optimistic playoff push.
There’s a chance Mingo’s utter forgettability was due to his time with a broken Panthers team. Unfortunately, neither his numbers nor his game film reflect that. Let’s see if we can figure out what Jones sees here.
Jonathan Mingo brought back a better trade return than:
— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) November 5, 2024
Za'Darius Smith
Cam Robinson
Diontae Johnson
DeAndre Hopkins https://t.co/etJJExGuix
The Jonathan Mingo trade details
- Cowboys get: WR Jonathan Mingo, 2025 seventh round pick
- Panthers get: 2025 fourth round pick
Cowboys grade
Wow. So the key to unlocking Cooper Rush’s potential and rallying the Cowboys to the postseason is… one of the NFL’s least efficient wide receivers? Mingo has been limited by poor quarterback play in Carolina, certainly, but that doesn’t explain a 0.67 yards per route run in 2024 (104th best among WRs, per Sumer Sports) or his 0.76 YPRR in 2023 (103rd). His career catch rate is under 50 percent. His success rate when targeted is 32 percent.
There have been no suggestions Mingo can be even an average NFL wide receiver. Despite this, the Cowboys gave up more than it cost to acquire veterans like Za’Darius Smith, Cam Robinson, Diontae Johnson or DeAndre Hopkins before this year’s trade deadline. Mingo’s two more seasons of team control at a low price (cap hits under $3 million each of the next two years) plays a role, but none of that matters if he’s not any good.
Again, nothing about his NFL career to date suggests he will be. His catch rate over expected this season is a robust -19.6 percent, which is second only to Xavier Worthy this season. His 3.0 yards of separation per target wouldn’t crack the NFL’s top 100. There’s a chance he puts things together after 1.5 trying seasons and a change of scenery. That’s something on which you’d stake a seventh round pick, not a fourth rounder.
Grade: F
Panthers grade
Mingo’s tenure in Charlotte was a disaster. The franchise quarterback he’d been drafted to uplift instead deflated.
Mingo’s own failures were a big part of that. But Mingo was a non-entity whether it was Bryce Young or Andy Dalton behind center. He’d had just five targets, one catch and one receiving yard in his last four games.
This was not a man with a future as a Carolina Panther. So general manager Dan Morgan put him on the market and reeled in a sucker. In exchange for a player who was an active drain on the offense, the Panthers picked up a draft pick that will probably fall within the top 120 selections of 2025. That’s plenty of room to find a young wide receiver who can actually contribute.
Grade: A
