Offseason Thoughts: Cowboys should have sold high on Prescott

[waving monkey]

I strongly believe the Cowboys should have sold high on Prescott last year.

When Romo was healthy and able to return last year, he should have been reinserted into the starting position and I believe we would have gone further in the playoffs as a result. More importantly though, this team that was built around Romo should have sold Prescott to the highest bidder while they could. You probably could have gotten two first round draft picks or a first and a second for Prescott last year.

That would have gone a long way towards infusing talent into the defense.

Instead, we ended up getting nothing for Romo except his dead money against the salary cap. Regardless of how you felt about Romo and Prescott, this was the worst possible outcome. The team went all in on Romo (drafting a running back 4th overall is going all in) and then decided to deviate because of some success Prescott had early in his career. Financially, that was a huge gamble, and while this story has yet to be written, I'm convinced it won't pay off.

I don't want to belabor this argument, we've discussed this ad nauseam, but you now have an offensive crisis where we're saying our receivers and offensive line aren't any good. The same units who in 2014 were among the best in the league and improving.

The offense is extremely cap heavy and isn't nearly as productive as it needs to be (14th in the NFL). Many people will blame the suspension and injury to Smith. So, we're now wholly reliant on two players being healthy and available in order for this team to operate (Elliott and Smith).

Elliott is a running back and is not likely to stay healthy for the duration of his time with the Cowboys. Smith and his back will ONLY get worse. Now we're in a position where we're going to have to re-sign Zach Martin and the offense will become even more salary cap heavy...

Is Prescott going to turn into Brees overnight? If your answer is no, you have to realize this front office needs to make some hard decisions and quickly. Even with improvement, if he can't carry an offense minus a few star players, you can't expect to build around him and have a stout defense.

I think this defense has a lot of potential, but the timing hasn't exactly been perfect. Rather than putting all of our eggs in one basket with Lawrence and Irving, I think it would be prudent to instead focus on rebuilding the defensive line through the draft, similar to what we did with the secondary. Money should be spent on highly reliable free agents. The front seven should be the primary focus on this draft.

Depending on what it would cost to trade for and sign Earl Thomas, I would take a serious look at getting him and moving Jones back to corner. Under Richards, our secondary could become a legitimate unit in the NFL.

lol

 

[HungryLion]

Finding a franchise QB can take a team a decade and multiple 1st round picks. The odds of getting one with a 4th rounder are near zero.

If there is even a slim chance you may have landed one with a 4th, you don't trade him away, you wait and see if he develops.

Whether he works out or not shouldn't affect their long term plan. They couldn't have been planning on snagging a franchise QB in 2016 or they wouldn't have only spent a 4th. They were in prime position to move up and grab one of the 2 near sure things available that draft if a franchise QB was the priority.

Which was poor decision making by our wonderful GM. Btw.

Before the 2016 draft I was actually of the belief that they needed to take a QB. I wanted a talented prospect badly. Because I knew Romo’s career was rapidly coming to a close.

Even though I believe Dak can be the guy, I am not against them drafting a QB high.

Hell if one of the top 4 QB’s falls to them this year. I am ok with them using the first on him, if they think he can be a stud.

You can’t have too many good QB’s. (The eagles are the evidence of this)

But I knew Jerry won’t. He is an idiot as a GM.

 

[aria]

Can we get a separate forum for all Romo related threads?

 

[pansophy]

I strongly believe the Cowboys should have sold high on Prescott last year.

When Romo was healthy and able to return last year, he should have been reinserted into the starting position and I believe we would have gone further in the playoffs as a result. More importantly though, this team that was built around Romo should have sold Prescott to the highest bidder while they could. You probably could have gotten two first round draft picks or a first and a second for Prescott last year.

That would have gone a long way towards infusing talent into the defense.

Instead, we ended up getting nothing for Romo except his dead money against the salary cap. Regardless of how you felt about Romo and Prescott, this was the worst possible outcome. The team went all in on Romo (drafting a running back 4th overall is going all in) and then decided to deviate because of some success Prescott had early in his career. Financially, that was a huge gamble, and while this story has yet to be written, I'm convinced it won't pay off.

I don't want to belabor this argument, we've discussed this ad nauseam, but you now have an offensive crisis where we're saying our receivers and offensive line aren't any good. The same units who in 2014 were among the best in the league and improving.

The offense is extremely cap heavy and isn't nearly as productive as it needs to be (14th in the NFL). Many people will blame the suspension and injury to Smith. So, we're now wholly reliant on two players being healthy and available in order for this team to operate (Elliott and Smith).

Elliott is a running back and is not likely to stay healthy for the duration of his time with the Cowboys. Smith and his back will ONLY get worse. Now we're in a position where we're going to have to re-sign Zach Martin and the offense will become even more salary cap heavy...

Is Prescott going to turn into Brees overnight? If your answer is no, you have to realize this front office needs to make some hard decisions and quickly. Even with improvement, if he can't carry an offense minus a few star players, you can't expect to build around him and have a stout defense.

I think this defense has a lot of potential, but the timing hasn't exactly been perfect. Rather than putting all of our eggs in one basket with Lawrence and Irving, I think it would be prudent to instead focus on rebuilding the defensive line through the draft, similar to what we did with the secondary. Money should be spent on highly reliable free agents. The front seven should be the primary focus on this draft.

Depending on what it would cost to trade for and sign Earl Thomas, I would take a serious look at getting him and moving Jones back to corner. Under Richards, our secondary could become a legitimate unit in the NFL.

I'm one of the biggest Romo fans out there -- liked him a lot even before he was starting. He hadn't stayed on the field for the last two years and Dak was equaling Romo's best statistical year of his career.

I was incredibly bummed when they kept Dak in when Romo was healthy because Dak reminded me of Big Ben's rookie year -- that he wasn't going to be good enough yet to get us through the playoffs. I also didn't want Romo's career to end that way.

But it's not the dumbest decision this organization has made, not by a long shot. A chance to replace a pro bowl QB with a pro bowl QB doesn't come along that often, and we just stumbled upon it too. I can see why we made the decision that we made. Sticking with Romo would mean that when he retires we are stuck finding another QB, and in principle they thought we had that in Dak.

Dak needs to get accurate 10-20 yards down field near the sidelines. If we can start to infuse sideline plays again everything will start to open up. We just have to give it some time.

 

[Sydla]

You knew the Romo threads would start popping back up soon.

LOL.

 

[Cowboysfan917]

I strongly believe the Cowboys should have sold high on Prescott last year.

When Romo was healthy and able to return last year, he should have been reinserted into the starting position and I believe we would have gone further in the playoffs as a result. More importantly though, this team that was built around Romo should have sold Prescott to the highest bidder while they could. You probably could have gotten two first round draft picks or a first and a second for Prescott last year.

That would have gone a long way towards infusing talent into the defense.

Instead, we ended up getting nothing for Romo except his dead money against the salary cap. Regardless of how you felt about Romo and Prescott, this was the worst possible outcome. The team went all in on Romo (drafting a running back 4th overall is going all in) and then decided to deviate because of some success Prescott had early in his career. Financially, that was a huge gamble, and while this story has yet to be written, I'm convinced it won't pay off.

I don't want to belabor this argument, we've discussed this ad nauseam, but you now have an offensive crisis where we're saying our receivers and offensive line aren't any good. The same units who in 2014 were among the best in the league and improving.

The offense is extremely cap heavy and isn't nearly as productive as it needs to be (14th in the NFL). Many people will blame the suspension and injury to Smith. So, we're now wholly reliant on two players being healthy and available in order for this team to operate (Elliott and Smith).

Elliott is a running back and is not likely to stay healthy for the duration of his time with the Cowboys. Smith and his back will ONLY get worse. Now we're in a position where we're going to have to re-sign Zach Martin and the offense will become even more salary cap heavy...

Is Prescott going to turn into Brees overnight? If your answer is no, you have to realize this front office needs to make some hard decisions and quickly. Even with improvement, if he can't carry an offense minus a few star players, you can't expect to build around him and have a stout defense.

I think this defense has a lot of potential, but the timing hasn't exactly been perfect. Rather than putting all of our eggs in one basket with Lawrence and Irving, I think it would be prudent to instead focus on rebuilding the defensive line through the draft, similar to what we did with the secondary. Money should be spent on highly reliable free agents. The front seven should be the primary focus on this draft.

Depending on what it would cost to trade for and sign Earl Thomas, I would take a serious look at getting him and moving Jones back to corner. Under Richards, our secondary could become a legitimate unit in the NFL.

I completely agree. I wanted to make this move the whole time. It would have been a genius move like the Walker trade.

 

[CIWhitefish]

I love folks who treat the NFL as a Madden franchise. Trades ahoy.

 

[SDCowboy]

Can we get a separate forum for all Romo related threads?

No joke, at this point that may need to happen.

 

[Bleu Star]

Just delete this now. It will save you embarrassment, although you should probably be embarrassed for actually putting this thought out into the world

Jesus Christ man.... Tell me about it....

These Dak threads are getting just as ridiculous as the weekly "Has anyone heard any news about Jaylon nerve" thread.

 

[Zimmy Lives]

I strongly believe the Cowboys should have sold high on Prescott last year.

When Romo was healthy and able to return last year, he should have been reinserted into the starting position and I believe we would have gone further in the playoffs as a result. More importantly though, this team that was built around Romo should have sold Prescott to the highest bidder while they could. You probably could have gotten two first round draft picks or a first and a second for Prescott last year.

That would have gone a long way towards infusing talent into the defense.

Instead, we ended up getting nothing for Romo except his dead money against the salary cap. Regardless of how you felt about Romo and Prescott, this was the worst possible outcome. The team went all in on Romo (drafting a running back 4th overall is going all in) and then decided to deviate because of some success Prescott had early in his career. Financially, that was a huge gamble, and while this story has yet to be written, I'm convinced it won't pay off.

I don't want to belabor this argument, we've discussed this ad nauseam, but you now have an offensive crisis where we're saying our receivers and offensive line aren't any good. The same units who in 2014 were among the best in the league and improving.

The offense is extremely cap heavy and isn't nearly as productive as it needs to be (14th in the NFL). Many people will blame the suspension and injury to Smith. So, we're now wholly reliant on two players being healthy and available in order for this team to operate (Elliott and Smith).

Elliott is a running back and is not likely to stay healthy for the duration of his time with the Cowboys. Smith and his back will ONLY get worse. Now we're in a position where we're going to have to re-sign Zach Martin and the offense will become even more salary cap heavy...

Is Prescott going to turn into Brees overnight? If your answer is no, you have to realize this front office needs to make some hard decisions and quickly. Even with improvement, if he can't carry an offense minus a few star players, you can't expect to build around him and have a stout defense.

I think this defense has a lot of potential, but the timing hasn't exactly been perfect. Rather than putting all of our eggs in one basket with Lawrence and Irving, I think it would be prudent to instead focus on rebuilding the defensive line through the draft, similar to what we did with the secondary. Money should be spent on highly reliable free agents. The front seven should be the primary focus on this draft.

Depending on what it would cost to trade for and sign Earl Thomas, I would take a serious look at getting him and moving Jones back to corner. Under Richards, our secondary could become a legitimate unit in the NFL.

 

[Jake]

I strongly believe the Cowboys should have sold high on Prescott last year.

I'd find this post more believable if you weren't just saying it now.

 

[PA Cowboy Fan]

People need to get over Romo. He's gone and not coming back..

 

[CyberB0b]

Did you not see the game where rusty Tony Romo played against the Panthers and stunk up the joint? I love Tony Romo, but he was done.

 

[IheartRomo]

A defensive lineman landed on his back in a seated position basically. That's a freak hit.

He picked up where he left off on that last Eagles drive. The only scoring drive of that game, playing with the backups.

I already said he was not done in terms of ability at all. His body had, however, completely and utterly shut down (by NFL playing standards). Playing one drive in a meaningless game without taking any hits does not change that.

He had gone 2 seasons without finishing 2 games in a row without injury. It had become nearly irresponsible to put all of our eggs in his basket knowing that he wasn't going to be on the field a significant amount of the time.

Romo was an elite QB but his body had given up on him by 2016. Any argument to the contrary is simply nostalgic and unrealistic, IMO.

 

[nightrain]

I strongly believe the Cowboys should have sold high on Prescott last year.

When Romo was healthy and able to return last year, he should have been reinserted into the starting position and I believe we would have gone further in the playoffs as a result. More importantly though, this team that was built around Romo should have sold Prescott to the highest bidder while they could. You probably could have gotten two first round draft picks or a first and a second for Prescott last year.

That would have gone a long way towards infusing talent into the defense.

Instead, we ended up getting nothing for Romo except his dead money against the salary cap. Regardless of how you felt about Romo and Prescott, this was the worst possible outcome. The team went all in on Romo (drafting a running back 4th overall is going all in) and then decided to deviate because of some success Prescott had early in his career. Financially, that was a huge gamble, and while this story has yet to be written, I'm convinced it won't pay off.

I don't want to belabor this argument, we've discussed this ad nauseam, but you now have an offensive crisis where we're saying our receivers and offensive line aren't any good. The same units who in 2014 were among the best in the league and improving.

The offense is extremely cap heavy and isn't nearly as productive as it needs to be (14th in the NFL). Many people will blame the suspension and injury to Smith. So, we're now wholly reliant on two players being healthy and available in order for this team to operate (Elliott and Smith).

Elliott is a running back and is not likely to stay healthy for the duration of his time with the Cowboys. Smith and his back will ONLY get worse. Now we're in a position where we're going to have to re-sign Zach Martin and the offense will become even more salary cap heavy...

Is Prescott going to turn into Brees overnight? If your answer is no, you have to realize this front office needs to make some hard decisions and quickly. Even with improvement, if he can't carry an offense minus a few star players, you can't expect to build around him and have a stout defense.

I think this defense has a lot of potential, but the timing hasn't exactly been perfect. Rather than putting all of our eggs in one basket with Lawrence and Irving, I think it would be prudent to instead focus on rebuilding the defensive line through the draft, similar to what we did with the secondary. Money should be spent on highly reliable free agents. The front seven should be the primary focus on this draft.

Depending on what it would cost to trade for and sign Earl Thomas, I would take a serious look at getting him and moving Jones back to corner. Under Richards, our secondary could become a legitimate unit in the NFL.

It's tough to see the front office and coaching staff making decisions like fans do, based on emotion.

 

[rangers71]

Wow there are some clueless people on here. Care to enlighten us and let us know who would be playing QB for us had we went ahead with your brilliant plan of trading Dak?

 

[Irvin88_4life]

Dak wasn't the reason we lost last year in the playoffs. As a matter of fact he was the reason we even came back and had a chance. I think Dak played better in that game then any Romo has played but at the end of the day it was still a lost.

Dak needs improvement..... Yes but he isn't the reason we failed to make the playoffs. Watch the Superbowl then tell me coaching has nothing to do with it

 

[northerncowboynation]

No, what the team should have done is draft a QB or 2 while Romo was here and had them ready for the inevitable next clavicle or back.. How many broken clavicles and back surgeries does it take to drive that decision? It's not like the status quo was all that great. Management made a good decision in drafting Dak, the decision was made about 3 years too late that's all.

 

[Irvin88_4life]

Finding a franchise QB can take a team a decade and multiple 1st round picks. The odds of getting one with a 4th rounder are near zero.

If there is even a slim chance you may have landed one with a 4th, you don't trade him away, you wait and see if he develops.

Whether he works out or not shouldn't affect their long term plan. They couldn't have been planning on snagging a franchise QB in 2016 or they wouldn't have only spent a 4th. They were in prime position to move up and grab one of the 2 near sure things available that draft if a franchise QB was the priority.

Wentz isn't a sure thing and neither was Goff, especially after both of their rookie seasons. What changed? Coaching...... Dallas keeps the same coach and well now we get dumb thread after dumb thread about Dak

 

[erod]

Romo was 100 times the QB that Dak ever will be.

But his body couldn't hold up anymore. They should have given it back to him last year though, no doubt. The warning signs of Dak's limitations were already apparent.