2023 NFL Free Agency: Cowboys sign RB Ronald Jones to one-year deal after adding OL Chuma Edoga, according to report

Life moves fast in the NFL. On Monday, the Dallas Cowboys had three visiting players: running back Ronald Jones, linebacker Travin Howard and offensive lineman Chuma Edoga. On Tuesday afternoon, two of them – Edoga and Jones – signed with Silver and Blue. The team announced Edoga’s one-year deal while Jones’ signing with Dallas comes from a Dallas morning news Report.

The Cowboys will be Edoga’s third team after starting with the New York Jets (2019-2021) and spending their final season with the Atlanta Falcons. The soon-to-be 26-year-old was the Jets’ third-round pick (92nd overall) in the 2019 NFL Draft. Edoga has a total of 13 starts in 26 career games played, including the first half of his games with the Jets (12 of 24). A knee injury limited him to two games with the Falcons in 2022. Given Tyron Smith’s advancing age (32-years-old), Edoga could be a decent replacement should he or any of the Cowboys’ other offensive players get injured.

Just five days later Release of the franchise’s #3 premier rusher In Ezekiel Elliott, the Dallas Cowboys brought in a younger running back with less tread on his tires in 25-year-old Ronald Jones, according to the league’s transaction line. Jones has been part of two of the last three Super Bowl champions, playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 2020 season and for the reigning champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, in 2022. Now he’ll likely serve as franchise-tagged Tony Pollard’s backup.

Jones, the 38th overall pick (second round) of USC’s 2018 NFL Draft, has 2,244 rushing yards and 19 rushing touchdowns in 505 career carries. His best season came at age 23, season three as the Buccaneers were en route to their Super Bowl LV title, when he totaled 978 rushing yards and seven rushing touchdowns on 192 carries. In 2021, Jones was beaten by Leonard Fournette as the Buccaneers’ lead back, causing his productivity to decline. He had 427 rushing yards and four rushing scores on just over 100 carries. He joined the Chiefs in 2022 but an ankle injury limited him to six games.

Jones attended McKinney North High School, less than an hour from where he will now play his home games at AT&T Stadium.

Another Super Bowl champion and the only player visiting via referral Monday who hasn’t signed yet is linebacker Travin Howard. TCU’s Dallas-Fort Worth product, who turns 27 in May, made one of the bigger plays in the Los Angeles Rams’ Super Bowl LVI run during the 2021 season with a game-winning interception by then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo with 1:09 in the NFC championship game. A knee injury derailed Howard’s 2020 season in Los Angeles when he tore a meniscus before the season. A groin injury caused him to miss all but one game of the 2022 season. The earlier seventh-round pick could be a decent addition to a year-long proof-it deal behind Micah Parsons and Leighton Vander Esch.