Trade Talk: Jets Wanted Cowboys O-Line Studs Zack Martin or Tyron Smith for Jamal Adams

Trade Talk: As more evidence of just how "not close'' a deadline swap really was, the Jets Wanted Cowboys O-Line Studs Zack Martin or Tyron Smith in exchange for Jamal Adams

FRISCO - Immediately after the NFL trade deadline passed, we illustrated here just how "not close'' the Dallas Cowboys really were to acquiring safety Jamal Adams from the New York Jets. And now, in the form of All-Pro blockers Zack Martin and Tyron Smith, we have another illustration.

The Jets will be keeping their unhappy star safety Adams, which is exactly what they wanted to do all along, thus their crazy-high trade demands. And the Cowboys will be keeping their asked-for assets, which at one time during the conversation included three high picks and reportedly at another time included New York's request that Martin or Tyron be included in the swap.

Our understanding is that as the Tuesday NFL trade deadline approached, the Cowboys were willing to part with a 2020 first-round pick and possibly a "sweetener'' (assume a later-round pick or a backup player, possibly DB Anthony Brown).

What did the Jets counter-propose? They liked the idea of that one premium pick. But they wanted a second premium pick as well. Oh, and they wanted a third premium pick, too.

And apparently, in a different stab at giving up Adams (which wasn't really a stab at all), according to NFL Network's Ian Rapoport, the Jets wanted Zack Martin. ... or Tyron Smith.

Safety Adams is a budding star, a Pro Bowler, a 24-year-old DFW native and a difference-maker. The revelations about these trade talks make it very clear that the Jets view him as all of those things and more ... so they asked for the sun and the moon and the sky.

And Zack Martin. Or Tyron Smith.

As the Cowboys already established in other recent deals made and not made, the multiple-premium-picks idea was never going to fly here. And breaking up the O-line that is the foundation of what Dallas has built? Hey, it was worth asking about, we suppose.

There will be a time and a place to say goodbye to Martin and Smith. But both remain elite players at age 28. The Cowboys were trying to "win the trade'' on Adams; a late-first-rounder and Brown would've done that, but giving up superstar talent wouldn't have. The Jets were trying to win the trade as well, thus their outlandish demands ...

And thus our continued insistence that the Jamal Adams trade was never really "close.''