Latest On Cowboys, Ronald Leary

Ronald Leary has requested a trade from the Cowboys, but Dallas isn’t in a hurry to send him elsewhere. On Thursday, Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones explained that he’d only trade the offensive lineman if he can get a decent return. Ronald Leary (vertical)

We told Ron that he could certainly look around, but we’re not in the business of letting go of good football players for little or nothing,” Jones said (link via Kate Hairopoulos of the Dallas Morning News). “We got calls during the draft asking to trade for some of our running backs. We just don’t have that interest. Ron’s a big part of this football team. We know it’s disappointing when you’ve been starting and you’re not. We’d hoped that he would look at it as ‘let’s come in here and compete.'”

Jones went on to say that the Cowboys expect Leary “to come in here at some point.” Leary, of course, is abstaining from voluntary OTAs but Jones hopes he’s “getting in shape wherever he is right now.”

Leary started at left guard for the Cowboys in 2013 and 2014. In 2015, he started the season in the same role but undrafted rookie La’el Collins – who was graded as a first-round talent before his infamous draft day slide – eventually took the job from him. The Cowboys are planning to start Collins at left guard once again in 2016, but they want all of the help they can get on the offensive line with Tony Romo returning from injury and rookie running back Ezekiel Elliott leading the team’s running back committee.

Leary was on the field for only 137 pass snaps and 84 run snaps in 2015, according to the stats compiled by Pro Football Focus (subscription required). Although he did not qualify to be ranked based on that limited sample size, Leary was given an overall grade of 72.2, which would have placed him among the top 30 guards in the NFL last season.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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