The Dallas Cowboys must deal with tough positional battles. And head coach Brian Schottenheimer plans to lean into the Cowboys’ past. Also, here are two sneaky Cowboys trade candidates entering the team’s 2025 training camp.

One area where the Cowboys may have the ability to make a trade is at the running back position. It appears to be a four-man battle with Jovante Williams, Miles Sanders, Jaydon Blue, and Deuce Vaughn in the mix. The Cowboys could cut one of those players, or they could make a deal.

Cowboys could trade RB Miles Sanders

It makes sense for the Cowboys to settle on a starter and have Blue get a decent amount of touches in a secondary role. If the Cowboys split carries between Sanders and Williams, it won’t leave many scraps for Blue.

And right now, it appears Williams has the inside track to start at the position. That’s true even though espn.com scoffed at the idea of Williams solving the Cowboys’ backfield issues.

“Why replace Dowdle with a back who has averaged 3.7 yards per carry and posted the league’s fifth-worst success rate since returning from a multiligament knee injury in 2023?” Bill Barnwell wrote. “The Cowboys would probably argue the move makes sense because of Williams’ range of abilities. There’s a case that he is a more complete back given his body of work as a receiver and pass blocker. Dallas didn’t necessarily trust Dowdle with pass blocking until the second half of last season, when they named him the full-time starter.”

As for Williams’ part, he says he’s ready to rock, according to dallascowboys.com.

“I feel completely like myself…” Williams said. “I probably can get more flexible and things like that, but as far as healing up, that I feel like is done.

“It just depends on who you are, it depends on your body… mine might take this amount of time, but somebody else might be different,” Williams said when asked about his recovery. “It’s a lot that goes into it that people don’t really understand. Just to be back out here and have another opportunity and chance to show myself, I can’t ask for nothing else.”

So where does that leave Miles Sanders?

He’s coming off two sub-par years with the Panthers, and said he wants to put that behind him, according to cowboyswire.com.

“These last two years, I don’t really have much to say,” said Sanders of his time in Carolina. “I guess I’d say I handled the situation as best I could, there were a lot of things out of my control that I would not like to speak on and just keep it in house, so I’ll just keep it at that.”

A running-back hungry team might find a reason to trade for Sanders. And if the Cowboys stick with Williams, they might be willing to deal.

Cowboys might deal from CB position

This will depend on the health progress of Shavon Revel Jr. If it looks like Revel will be ready to go from Week 1, the Cowboys might be willing to deal one of there cornerbacks. Included in that mix is Israel Mukuamu, who is currently slotted as a nickel back.

Listening to Revel, he says he could indeed be ready to go, according to dallascowboys.com.

“I still have to go out there and prove myself to the coaches,” Revel said. “I’ve got to go out there and show them what I have. You can always talk, at the end of the day, you’ve got to prove to the coaches what you can do.”

He said earlier this year that his progress has been steady.

“”Right now I can pretty much do everything,” Revel said. “Running straight line, cutting, haven’t gotten too much into that, just trying to take it day by day, trying to take it slow.”

And he said the experiences of life and injury have made him stronger.

“It’s definitely made me a tough individual…” Revel said of dealing with his hardships. “I’m very hard on myself, and that’s what it did to me because I look back then, I don’t look back and myself and be like ‘Bro, you never did this and that,’ because everything happens for a reason. You learn and you grow, you learn from your mistakes, and that’s kind of what I did.”

Israel Mukuamu brings versatility to the Cowboys’ secondary. And that’s the very thing that could allow him to have trade value. Of course, it’s also possible Revel will be slow in getting out the gates, and Mukuamu would be a valuable piece for the Cowboys’ defense in the early part of the season.