GS. DALLAS COWBOYS’ MINGO DISASTER: Cowboys officially have a massive Jonathan Mingo problem on their hands
The Dallas Cowboys’ offense hit a snag in the final two games before the bye week, ranking 22nd in EPA per play and 15th in offensive success rate. That’s a noticeable drop-off considering they were borderline unstoppable over the first seven weeks.
While the offense should bounce back in a big way against the Las Vegas Raiders on Monday night, Brian Schottenheimer has a lot of questions to answer at the wide receiver position. It’s probably time to reduce KaVontae Turpin’s snaps and touches for more of Ryan Flournoy.
That opens up a bigger concern about Jonathan Mingo, who’s yet to play this season due to a PCL sprain suffered in the second week of preseason. The problem? Mingo has seemingly been healthy for weeks and has yet to see the field.
Cowboys’ Jonathan Mingo trade looks all-time bad after a full year
The Cowboys activated Mingo from injured reserve on October 21. He would have finished the year on IR if they didn’t move him to the active roster, but that was three weeks ago.
Mingo was technically a healthy scratch in Week 8 against the Broncos. He practiced in full from Wednesday to Friday. He could’ve played, but there’s some logic behind Dallas potentially not wanting to throw him out there against arguably the NFL’s best defense.
That’s not unheard of for players who were just activated off IR. But he was a healthy scratch for the Cardinals game as well. Again, he was a full participant Wednesday through Friday and did not carry an injury designation. That means he was a healthy scratch two games in a row.
Not exactly ideal for a player whom Dallas traded a 2025 fourth-round pick for before last year’s deadline. It’s more proof that this front office doesn’t have a plan.
The Cowboys already had a better version of Mingo on the roster in Ryan Flournoy, whom they selected in the fifth round of the 2024 draft. Surely they wouldn’t have traded for Mingo if they knew what Flournoy was capable of.
Furthermore, Jalen Tolbert was under contract at the time of the trade, Dallas extended KaVontae Turpin in March, and traded for George Pickens in May after targeting Tetairoa McMillan in the 2025 draft.
The WR room was a mess this time last year. That is the only reason Dallas acquired Mingo, and they traded more resources than what they got for Amari Cooper when they sent him to Cleveland.
Mingo emerges from the bye week sixth in the pecking order behind CeeDee Lamb, Pickens, Turpin, Flournoy, and Tolbert. Maybe he’ll have a role to play in the second half of the year, but that would feel more like shoehorning him into the offense than anything else. It’s a big problem, but Dallas has nobody but itself to blame.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
