The Cowboys didn’t let another ugly loss – and some on-air ridicule from a franchise legend – change their buying mentality before Tuesday’s NFL trade deadline. Less than 12 hours after a bad home flop against the Cardinals on “Monday Night Football” dropped Dallas to 3-5-1, the Cowboys acquired Bengals linebacker Logan Wilson for a seventh-round pick.

Per NFL Network, Wilson asked out after a dip in playing time. That’s one way to describe it.

Cincinnati removed him as a starter in Week 8, he missed Week 9 due to injury, and he has 19 solo tackles and one fumble recovery in eight games this season. The sales pitch? Wilson topped 100 total tackles in each of the previous four seasons and signed a four-year extension in 2023 worth up to $37.25 million, with two years remaining.

READ MORE: Bengals’ Defense Nears Historic Infamy

Translation? Cost-controlled, experienced, and available … three magic words at the deadline when you’re allowing 30.8 points per game, second-worst in the league.

Owner Jerry Jones, 83, all but telegraphed a move hours before kickoff.

“We certainly have made a trade and we may make a couple more trades before the deadline,” Jones said on “The Stephen A. Smith Show,” as transcribed by ESPN. “We’ve made one. We possibly could make two more, and I’m going to wait and let you read about that when we send the papers in tomorrow.”

For a team that’s been playing from behind defensively ever since trading Micah Parsons to the Packers, the urgency checks out; the logic, less so.

In the booth, Troy Aikman needed all of three seconds to roll his eyes at the notion that a single import solves anything.

“He may want to cancel that trade,” Aikman said on ESPN while laughing during the third quarter of Arizona’s 27–17 win. “I don’t think one player from what I’ve seen tonight is going to make a difference for this group.” Fellow narrator Joe Buck co-signed the malaise. The Cowboys are “beyond that right now, defensively,” noting how even rumored prize Trey Hendrickson, the Bengals star who led the NFL with 17.5 sacks last year, couldn’t drag Cincinnati’s defense to January glory.

As Aikman added: “If you’re talking about Trey Hendrickson, he was on this defense last year in Cincinnati, that was the equivalent of what we are watching here tonight, and he couldn’t change their fortunes.”

So no Hendrickson; instead, Dallas landed Wilson.

Cheaper, easier, safer, and, if we’re being honest, less impactful on paper. ESPN reported that Jones’ pregame “deal in place” likely referred to Wilson, which Aikman openly mocked without knowing the specifics.

The optics didn’t improve when Jacoby Brissett – yes, the backup – guided a Cardinals team on a five-game losing streak to a road lead that swelled to 24-10 while Kyler Murray’s depth-chart status became a conversation piece.

Could there be more moves? Jones dangled that carrot.

READ MORE: Cowboys’ Potential Trade Target Posts Cryptic Message After Heartbreaking OT Loss on Sunday

“We may make a couple more trades before the deadline… We possibly could make two more.”

Maybe those get iced after Monday night’s uninspiring effort. Maybe not. Either way, history says you don’t fix a leaky defense at the deadline; you triage it and pray your offense sprints fast enough to outrun the holes.

For now, Wilson gets a week to unpack with Dallas on the bye.

His first game in a star helmet will have to wait until Week 11 on “Monday Night Football” at the Raiders. One player away? Aikman doesn’t buy it. Buck doesn’t buy it. And after 3-5-1 and a national-TV belly-flop, neither should you … unless “Band-Aid” really is the new team-building strategy.