Cowboys to battle Bengals in Dolphins trade rumor for All-Pro

The Miami Dolphins have an All-Pro linebacker, Jordyn Brooks, whose contract expires after the 2026 season.

The Dallas Cowboys and Cincinnati Bengals are both offensive juggernauts who still could use defensive upgrades.

Yep, they sound like a match for a trade.

That's what ESPN's Aaron Schatz suggests in a new article on Thursday. The premise of this segment of his article is that the Dolphins need to trade Brooks before the offseason is over to extract some value out of the pending free agent.

"Look, is there any point in the Dolphins keeping good players if their contracts end after the 2026 season?" Schatz writes. "Brooks could possibly re-sign with Miami to be part of the rebuild. But he's likely gone, so the Dolphins should get something for him."

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Schatz then names the Cowboys and Bengals as logical fits.

"Brooks was a first-team All-Pro linebacker last season, leading the league with 183 total tackles and adding 3.5 sacks as a blitzer," Schatz writes. "He would be a useful addition for a team with a contending-quality offense but a need at linebacker, perhaps the Bengals or the Cowboys."

It's hard to have a better season than the one Brooks just had, but even if he can come close to replicating that, he could be a star pickup for another team.

Linebackers at Brooks' level don't get traded all that often, so it's hard to know exactly what he might cost. But with just the one year of contract control, it likely wouldn't be a prohibitive price.

The Dolphins' only hold-up might be if they feel they'll be better this season than the football world generally thinks. In that scenario, they could justify keeping Brooks to maintain a higher level of play.

But even if Brooks isn't traded before the season, he'd be someone to watch as the NFL's trade deadline approached, because it's hard to see his presence being enough to make the Dolphins a winning team in 2026.

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