Dallas' star returner, KaVontae Turpin, sparks trade debate. Despite Pro Bowl success, a recent proposal questions his value.
FRISCO - KaVontae Turpin’s time at TCU was marked by speedy excellence on the field and so much turbulence off it that it took him years to get a real shot at the NFL.
He got that shot in 2022 after winning MVP in the USFL, signing with the Dallas Cowboys and since then developing into arguably the NFL’s most dangerous return man.
A year ago, Turpin was given a three-year, $13.5 million deal with the Cowboys, making him the highest-paid return specialist in NFL history.
And now … some folks seem to want to give him away.
The biggest story in the Dallas receivers room is of course the George Pickens contract saga, which rages on with him being tagged at $27.3 million for 2026 … but no talks between the two sides about a long-term commitment.
But now comes another “story’’ of a sort.
USA Today’s Reid Hanson has pegged KaVontae Turpin as a Dallas trade candidate. … and I’m trying to understand the logic.
Turpin’s work has netted him three Pro Bowl selections in four years. He is coming off a season during which he sometimes seemed unsteady as a return guy, something that is highly uncharacteristic for him and needs to get fixed.
He also needs to keep working on what he can do on offense to be something more than a “gimmick guy,’’ a tag that sticks to him in part because of his diminutive (5-9, 160) size.
But he is a weapon.
So why would Dallas trade him?
“The Cowboys tried to expand Turpin’s role in 2025 and in some ways it worked and in other ways it failed. Turpin posted career numbers on offense, but miscues and drops were littered throughout,” writes Hanson, who believes that Dallas could net a fourth-round pick in the upcoming NFL Draft in exchange for Turpin.
“Even coming off a down year, Turpin is highly valued around the NFL ... He should garner a pretty decent return from a team looking for juice,” Hanson continued.
And I’m left confused.
Turpin is the fourth option behind Pickens, CeeDee Lamb and the surging Ryan Flournoy. But as a return man, again, he’s the No. 1 option in the NFL.
There is no cap-related reason to move Turpin; the team would save only $160,000.
There is no issue with Turpin’s presence creating a bottleneck of development of other players at receiver or returner.
There is no behavioral concern here.
And what is gained? Hanson believes that the Cowboys could benefit more from offloading Turpin than from anything he offers the team as he believes that Dallas could net a fourth-round pick in the upcoming NFL Draft in exchange for Turpin.
“Even coming off a down year, Turpin is highly valued around the NFL ... He should garner a pretty decent return from a team looking for juice,” Hanson continued.
Yeah, but …
If Turpin is “highly-valued’’ and offers “juice’’ and is worth a “pretty decent return’’ … why am I getting rid of him?
Do you know what the odds are of a fourth-round pick becoming a front-line player, which Turpin is? That’d be 11 percent.
Do you know what the odds are of a Day 3 draftee becoming a Pro Bowler? That’d be .5 percent.
Those odds tell you why you shouldn’t be trading Turpin.
I’m all for ideas, and “playing in the sandbox’’ to explore those ideas - so I mean no disrespect to the author here. But I’m not aware of any sign that the Cowboys themselves are considering this, and I think we should remind ourselves that Dallas needs to be in the business of discovering and developing talent - which they did with TCU product Turpin - rather than giving it away.