Texas Rattlers and Carolina Cowboys Make Blockbuster Trade During PBR Team Series Draft
By: Justin Felisko
ARLINGTON, Texas – Joao Ricardo Vieira and Cody Jesus were standing inside the green room at Lockhart Smokehouse at Texas Live! proudly supporting two baby blue Carolina Cowboys jerseys.
Vieira had a big smile on his face, and a stunned Jesus was also smiling.
Vieira quickly rubbed his hands back and forth, “We are going to be a great duo.”
Jesus was just as excited. “Man, this is not at all what I expected to happen tonight.”
In fact, no one inside Texas Live! outside of Texas and Carolina knew exactly what was about to happen during the first 10 picks of the 2022 PBR Team Series Draft, presented by ZipRecruiter.
Vieira and Jesus then glanced up at a television backstage to see Carolina General Manager Austin Dillon sitting at the Texas Rattlers table and talking intently with Rattlers coach Cody Lambert.
“What do you think that is about?” Jesus asked Vieira.
Vieira responded with a question of his own, “What do they (Matt West & Kate Harrison) mean by trade? What is happening?”
***
Texas had initially been targeting Vieira at the No. 3 pick for weeks, if not months. However, once Daylon Swearingen won the 2022 PBR World Championship on Sunday morning at Dickies Arena, teams wondered if Texas coach Cody Lambert and General Manager Mark George would instead pick Swearingen.
How could Texas not select Swearingen, the newly minted 22-year-old PBR World Champion?
Lambert refused to show his cards publicly until the draft began.
PBR Commissioner Sean Gleason stepped onto the stage at Texas Live! and proudly announced that, with the No. 3 pick, the Texas Rattlers selected the new 2022 PBR World Champion Swearingen. The Austin Gamblers, minutes earlier, had selected two-time World Champion Jose Vitor Leme at No. 1 and the Nashville Stampede selected 2018 World Champion Kaique Pacheco at No. 2.
However, Texas had already been in deep discussions with the Carolina Cowboys for quite some time about the possibility of acquiring the No. 3 pick before the draft. Carolina coach Jerome Davis had actually mentored Swearingen when he was an up-and-coming bull rider in North Carolina.
The two teams had failed to come to an agreement before the Rattlers’ selection, but Carolina GM Austin Dillon kept the trade lines open. He told Lambert and company they would select Vieira if the 37-year-old talent fell to them in the draft.
The two teams then waited.
The Kansas City Outlaws selected 2019 Rookie of the Year Dalton Kasel at No. 4
2020 Wrangler National Finals event winner Colten Fritzlan went No. 5 to the Missouri Thunder, and then the Arizona Ridge Riders chose Luciano de Castro at No. 6.
Just before Carolina would select Jesus at No. 7, Dillon was once again at the Texas Rattlers’ table discussing a trade.
The Oklahoma Freedom took the tandem of Eli Vastbinder and Derek Kolbaba at No. 8 and No. 9.
Carolina then finally ended Vieira’s slide at 10 overall, but not even two minutes later, Dillon and Rattlers GM George were chatting on the phone.
Could a deal be in the works with Texas to pick at No. 14?
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***
Back inside the green room, Vieira and Jesus were preparing for a social media and photo content shoot in their Cowboys jerseys when they were suddenly glued to the television.
Gleason revealed to the packed house at Texas Live! and those watching on RidePass on Pluto TV and the Cowboy Channel what would go down as a jaw-dropping first trade in PBR Team Series history.
Texas agreed to send Swearingen, their selection at No. 14 (Mason Taylor) and pick No. 30 to Carolina for Vieira, Jesus and pick No. 26.
Fans were stunned.
So too were Vieira and Jesus.
Then an even bigger smile emerged from Vieira when he realized he was, in fact, going to be riding for Texas.
He and Jesus grabbed Texas Rattler jerseys, tossed the Cowboys gear to the side, and made their way outside the green room.
“I’m so surprised about this because Cody did not pick me in the third pick, and I wait,” Vieira said. “It’s so good. I like to stay on the Ariat team, the Rattlers, and I will give my blood for this team.”
Jesus added, “I was super shocked, but at least I get to keep my teammate. I’ve looked up to him, and I love this team. I am surprised and excited. I thought it would be the Ridge Riders, maybe. It was a long shot. But then I was like, I’m sure the Ridge Riders take me in the second round, so that’s what I was waiting for, just right after that. But I am happy to be a first-round draft pick.”
It took only a few minutes before Lambert ran up to Vieira and gave him a massive bear hug.
“I promised you I would make this happen, and I am sorry it went about this way, but we always wanted you. You were our guy from day one,” an affectionate Lambert explained.
Lambert then gave Jesus a similarly massive hug, expressing his understanding that he may be disappointed that Arizona did not select him, but that Texas is absolutely thrilled to have him and that he knows what kind of value and talent Jesus is.
“I wanted Joao all year,” Lambert told PBR.com later in the draft. “Since I’ve taken this job, that was my first pick. That’s going to be my first pick. And then something developed this week for Daylon – and I’d be fine having Daylon, too, but my first pick has always been Joao. And then, the way things worked out, it was available that I could get Joao and Cody Jesus.
“Cody Jesus is just about to get really good. Cody Jesus barely makes the Finals, comes in as the Velocity Finals (winner), and he’s competing for a World Championship on the last day of the PBR Finals. That’s a pretty big deal. That’s a big jump. He’s always had a lot of talent, but he’s getting where I think he could really take care of business here.”
The Rattlers would later select Brady Oleson with the No. 26 pick, while the Cowboys would choose Ramon de Lima at No. 30 to finish out the trade.
“Brady Oleson, that’s an interesting deal right there,” Lambert said. “He’s 26 years old, and been through a lot, and made it through a lot, and he’s at a point right now where he’s just about to get really good.
“But I’m impressed by a lot of teams. There’s a lot of good teams, and so it’s going to be very, very competitive, and they’d better bring the best bulls, or nobody will ever get bucked off around here.”
***
Jerome Davis is a pretty mellow kind of guy and doesn’t tend to be one to make demands, but the 1995 PRCA champion bull rider and head coach of the Carolina Cowboys had an agenda for his general manager. Davis needed Dillon, the driver of the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, to put his foot on the gas pedal and go get Swearingen.
“I’ve known Daylon for a long, long time,” Davis said. “Since he was a little kid, he’d be coming to my bull riding schools. I’ve watched him through his whole career and talked to him through it. He’ll call me every now and then to kind of get through some slumps, and I kind of knew what made him go. It was awesome. I think everybody knew that me and Daylon had a good relationship, and that had a lot to do with it. I think everybody knew that he would be happy here, and at the end of the day, it fell our way.”
“I’ll tell you what. Austin, he pulled it off. I kept saying we’ve got to do a trade with Cody, and Austin said, ‘Let’s sit back and let’s wait, see if he’ll fall to us.’ JRV fell to us, so then we had them.”
Swearingen had known Davis and Carolina wanted him, but he was unsure if a deal would get done, especially once his name was announced inside Texas Live!
“I knew something was kind of in the works, but I didn’t know how they were going to pull it off, and I’m glad they pulled it off,” Swearingen said. “I didn’t know that was going to happen out there.”
Swearingen laughed when thinking about teaming up with Taylor and 2016 World Champion Cooper Davis, who is expected to be a member of the Cowboys via the supplemental draft in June.
“I’m probably going to learn how to play golf,” Swearingen said. “It’s really awesome. It’s good. In a normal season, we’re helping each other, and we’re probably going to help each other even more in the teams.”
Taylor admitted he was pretty frustrated not hearing his name selected by the Cowboys early on.
“I was just sitting there, and we were talking with some buddies, and I was like, ‘That’s not what they told me they had in mind, but hey,'” Taylor said. “A little bit disappointed, but one of the Cowboys come over and smiled at me, and he was like, ‘You’re going to like this.’
“I knew they were working on something good. I didn’t know it was going to be this good, but I knew it was going to be something.”
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Throughout the draft, Dillon was patient and persistent, navigating negotiations with Lambert and George like he would the Daytona 500.
“I will tell you what, Austin is taking this more serious than I even expected him to,” Richard Childress told PBR.com after the draft.
If Carolina walked out with Vieira and Jesus, it still would have been quite a day for the Cowboys, but Dillon wanted to do things right by his coach.
“Oh, it’s huge,” Dillon said. “Jerome would just say, ‘How can we get him? How can we get him?’ I just said, ‘Let’s stay pat. I don’t want to give up too much.’ You can’t give up the whole farm, and we were able to do it and feel like we got our guys throughout the draft.”
Carolina hoped not to give up Jesus, but Dillon knew his hands were tied.
“I really like Cody, but I knew we could get Daylon, and I know Jerome really wanted him,” Dillon said. “It’s hard to pass on the World Champion. Cody looked so good. I was happy either way. If they didn’t do the trade, I was good with JRV and Cody at those two picks, and that’s just what I let them know. I said, ‘The furthest I can go back is a 26/30 swap.’ And we get Boudreaux (Campbell) at 23, and that was like a dream come true.”
Dealing with Lambert can be a process – ask any of the stock contractors he worked with for nearly 30 years as the PBR’s Director of Livestock – but Dillon leaned into his coach, his inner circle, and trusted the process.
“Man, we’ve been working it all weekend long,” Dillon said. “I know Cody wanted JRV, and I just kept telling him, I said, ‘He’s going to fall to me, and you’re going to be able to pick earlier in the second round.’ We were trying to get it done before the draft, but they had to just see it happen, and when it did happen, it made sense to him. So they got to move up from 30 to 26, and we’re all happy.
“Everybody’s good.”
Follow Justin Felisko on Twitter @jfelisko
Photo courtesy of Bull Stock Media
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