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One of the more low key things to happen with the Dallas Cowboys during their season-opening victory against the New York Giants was technically something that didn’t happen at all. Taco Charlton didn’t play due to being a game day inactive.
This news was both surprising and not surprising. Charlton has been a disappointment for the Cowboys since they took him in the first round two years ago, but he seemingly showed a lot of promise during the preseason. There were those that thought Dallas was trying to showcase him in an effort to trade the defensive end and doing what they could to prevent him from getting hurt in Week 1 corroborated that idea.
It’s still (obviously) not known whether Taco will play during the Week 2 game in Washington, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying to figure it out. What’s more is it hasn’t prevented people from asking Jason Garrett about it, and on Monday the head coach delivered a bit of an interesting response regarding his former first-round pick.
During an interview with ESPN San Antonio on Monday, Jason Garrett was point blank asked if Taco Charlton had a future with his team. While Garrett ultimately answered the question by describing what led to Charlton being inactive he started off his answer with three noteworthy words: “Yea, we’ll see.”
Question: “I thought Taco Charlton showed some improvement during the preseason games. I was surprised he was inactive yesterday, does he have a future with your team?”
Jason Garrett: “Yea, we’ll see. You know, it’s always a competition every week to see who’s going to be up and available for us at all positions. We have 10 guys on the active roster on the defensive line, and we dressed eight for the game. It just felt like the guys we had up there gave us the best chance.”
This could have just been Jason Garrett beginning his answer in a roundabout way. Saying “yea, we’ll see” is hardly an admission of anything, but if Charlton’s future was stone cold set don’t you think he would have been a little bit more firm?
There’s apparently a team that the Cowboys are talking to about Taco
While that was Monday, two days later word continued to trickle out regarding Charlton. Appearing on Somos Cowboys, the mothership’s Bryan Broaddus talked about the Cowboys being in talks with another team when it comes to the third-year defensive end (jump to about 3:25).
LIVE from The Star - @AmbarGarciaTV & @BryanBroaddus preview Week 2 matchup against Washington #DALvsWAS https://t.co/1njgDJ7D8g
— Somos Cowboys (@SomosCowboys) September 11, 2019
“I think they would shoot for a five [round draft pick] right now, I really do. I don’t think there’s a, you know, you’re going to get a whole lot of value there. I know there’s a team that they’re talking to, I don’t want to get into the team because I don’t want to hurt their chances with the team. But there’s a team they’re talking to about another player on that team at a position that can help them.”
Dallas has had unbelievable success in the first round over the decade with Charlton, unfortunately, being the lone exception on the list (Morris Claiborne to a lesser degree, you get the picture). As it stands the Cowboys will have to decide after this season whether they want to pick up his fifth-year option, perhaps it would ultimately be best to let that be a decision that another team has to make.
Who do you think the Cowboys could be talking to? And what position could they be targeting?