Are Cowboys buzzing about trade for Saints' Ingram?

Published Oct. 23, 2014 6:21 p.m. ET

foxsports

IRVING, Texas -- The NFL trade deadline is Oct. 28 and maybe because sports like baseball and basketball so often feature "sexy'' swaps at the deadline, there is a perception that football operates the same way -- and that rumors that connect the Dallas Cowboys with running back Mark Ingram of the New Orleans Saints have some substance.

But while there is no better way to sell papers, to peddle subscriptions, to gain clicks or to fill radio-talk show time than to stretch the "speculation" of an NFL trade into something resembling a "story'" about a trade, there is no steak behind the sizzle, with that rumor or most of the dozens of other gossip items.

In the case of Ingram, he's now arguably New Orleans' top back and in the final year of a cheap contract. If he leaves the Saints via free agency, the possible draft-pick compensation will likely match what New Orleans could get for him in trade right now. Therefore, why sacrifice his talents now?

In Dallas -- where the Cowboys do happen to think highly of Ingram and once upon a time even considered trading up for him in his draft -- sources tell FOX Sports Southwest that there are no true conversations about an idea that is gaining headlines across the country.

Ah, but NFL.com wrote about it, in a speculative way. And now it has legs that it does not deserve.

Here's the caution about such rumors at the deadline in the NFL, where the salary-cap rules alone make it prohibitive to trade big-money star players (like Jared Allen, Maurice Jones-Drew and Adrian Peterson, all of whom were the center of bogus "Dallas trade talks'' a year ago): In the last seven years, NFL teams have completed an average of 1.42 deadline deals per year in the weeks leading up to the deadline.

They are sexy for the public to talk about, and the former Heisman winner Ingram joining the 6-1 Cowboys led by runner DeMarco Murray is sexy. But the history, the numbers, the rules and folks inside Valley Ranch say the idea of blockbuster trades is only that -- something for the public to talk about until Sunday and Monday get here.