The Cowboys have insisted several times recently that they aren’t interested in trading cornerback Mike Jenkins and their actions speak as loudly as their words.
Len Pasquarelli of the Sports Xchange reports that they have turned down four different teams that have inquired about making trades for Jenkins. Two of those teams -- the Colts and Lions -- have been reported previously, but the report doesn’t identify the other two teams sniffing around for a deal. The reasons why the Cowboys aren’t making a deal are the same ones that we’ve known for a while and that might be why Pasquarelli also reports that the Cowboys aren’t going to change their mind come training camp.
The Cowboys have said that they don’t feel like you can have enough cornerbacks, something that has definitely seemed to be the truth during recent NFL seasons. Jenkins is set to make just over $1 million in the final year of his rookie deal, which is an easy salary to fit under the cap for a player who would be on the field as much as Jenkins could potentially be in 2012.
There’s always the possibility that the Cowboys are banging the drum publicly about their unwillingness to make a deal so that the interested parties up their offers once the season gets closer. That might even cross the line from possibility to likelihood given the fact that Jenkins doesn’t even profile as the team’s third cornerback ahead of Orlando Scandrick. Unless the return in a trade rises above what the team might get as a compensatory pick after Jenkins leaves as a free agent, there’s not a particularly compelling reason to make a deal.