The trades from Round 1 show what it may have cost the Dallas Cowboys to move up

The Dallas Cowboys drafted Tyler Smith with the 24th overall pick on Thursday night. Many will debate the value of the pick and whether or not the Cowboys reached or made a fine selection, but the pick is what it is at this point.

If the Cowboys wanted a different lineman, namely one like Kenyon Green or Zion Johnson, they were going to have to move up. We obviously know that now because of where these players went on Thursday night.

The Houston Texans took Green at pick number 15 and Johnson went two spots later to the Los Angeles Chargers. If the Cowboys wanted one of them they would have had to have jumped as high as pick number 16. We saw nine total trades happen throughout the first night of the NFL Draft. If we look back on what teams paid, should the Cowboys have pulled the trigger themselves?

Here is what each team paid to move up during the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft

While the top 10 went fairly smoothly and without much excitement by way of trade, as soon as the Washington Commanders were on the clock things started to take off.

Here are all of the trades that happened on Thursday night.

• New Orleans sent pick 16, a third-, and a fourth-round pick to the Commanders in exchange for pick number 11 (Distance Moved Up: 5 spots)
• Detroit sent pick 32, a second-, and a third-round pick to the Vikings in exchange for pick number 12 (Distance Moved Up: 20 spots)
• Philadelphia sent pick 15, a fourth-, and two fifth-round picks to the Texans in exchange for pick number 13 (Distance Moved Up: 2 spots)
• Arizona sent pick 23 and a fourth-round pick to the Ravens in exchange for Marquise Brown (Distance Moved Up: N/A)
• Philadelphia sent pick 18 and a fourth-round pick to the Titans in exchange for AJ Brown (Distance Moved Up: N/A)
• Kansas City sent pick 29, a third-, and a fourth-round pick to the Patriots for pick number 21 (Distance Moved Up: 8 spots)
• Buffalo sent pick 25 and a fourth-round pick to the Ravens in exchange for pick number 23 (Distance Moved Up: 2 spots)
• The Jets sent a second-, third-, and fifth-round pick to the Titans in exchange for pick number 26 and a third-rounder (Distance Moved UP: N/A)
• Jacksonville sent a second-, fourth-, and sixth-round pick to the Buccaneers in exchange for pick number 27 (Distance Moved Up: N/A)

Obviously the trades for wide receivers did not involve distance being gained and while the last two trades did involve compensation on both ends, both the Titans and Buccaneers traded out of the first round so they didn’t ‘move down’ in the same round.

This gives us five trades to really look at and one of them happened to move up eight spots which is what the Cowboys would have done if they wanted to go from 24 to 16 as we discussed. Kansas City gave up their first pick, plus a third- and fourth-round pick in order to make up that distance. If we use that as a loose guideline then we have (based on the way Thursday night went specifically) sort of a frame of reference for what the Cowboys would have maybe had to spend to get up for say Zion Johnson.

Even the Saints sent Washington their first pick, plus a third- and fourth-round pick and that was only to move up five spots, although that was a bit of a more premium spot in the first round to be fair. It stands to reason that this was around what the Cowboys may have had to pay which is why they decided to sit, wait, and take their guy which wound up being Tyler Smith.