I don't think they look at player personnel, at least when it comes to FA, through the prism of position needs or overall team needs. They just look at players. They just want to grab bodies, especially their own, in FA.
Randy Gregory is a good DE. He's not a great DE. He was offered $70 million which is a pretty large contract for a DE. That kind of contract would give you the impression that the Cowboys realize they have a big need at DE opposite Lawrence. And yet, when Gregory bolts, they make no moves to land an equally talented or better DE. That $70 million "budgeted" for DE vaporizes. Because it wasn't budgeted for a high level DE. It was just budgeted for Gregory. They signed a couple of cheapies and move onto the draft. They didn't slot $70 million to get better (or at least not regress) at DE. They just slotted the money for Gregory, only.
Take Elliott. They paid him a massive contract. One would think that it's because they view the importance of a TB to this offense, hence why they paid a talented TB all that money. But if Elliott could retire tomorrow with no cap implications for the Cowboys and Henry or Kamara or Cook were free agents, would the Cowboys spend that kind of money on talented TBs to replace him? Nope.
What we are seeing is a disconnect between what they are willing to pay their own players that they like and what they are willing to pay to fill the position if "their" player left or wasn't here.
I just feel that our managment, along with most fans, have a complete misunderstanding of the cap and how it works, and that is a large part of our problem and we we wallow in mediocraty.
Gregory did not a get a 5 year 70 mil deal. He did not get a guaranteed 14 mil per year. He got basically a 2 year deal worth about 22.
His cap hit for the Broncos this year is 5.6 mil. That's about a mil less than what Fowler and Armstrong are costing us.
If he plays well, I'd expect they keep him and renegotiate (restructure) his 16 mil hit next season, reducing it and opening up space for others.
If he plays poorly, or has diciplinary issues, they could cut him, and take all the hit next year or spread that 16 mil hit over 2 years (depending on when they cut him and their cap situation next year.
Look at the Rams as an example.
How do they keep signing these stars?
They are smart. They take risks. Sometimes they pay off, sometimes they dont. When they make a mistake (like Gurley), they just move on and take the hit. It affects them for a year (or 2), but then they are done with their mistake.
We keep milking Zeke, like he's suddenly going to find a time machine and get back to what he was 4 years ago (and we keep paying him his contrcat, and even restructuring it). That's a huge mistake.
The other thing I'll say is to stop thinking in terms of the past as it relates to cap space.
Gregory's 2022 hit is just 5.6, and future hits will come when the cap explodes.
The cap is expected to rise as much as 40 mil just next year, and hit 308 mil by 2026.
A few years ago the cap was 150. By 2026 it will be over 300.
Gregory's 14 mil per year today is much less that what we gave Tyrone Crawford on his last contract, as far as a % of the cap.
The cap is a future number, not a static number.
Our owners are too old school. They think in terms of the NFL of the past. Cooper made us mad so we are going to ruin him. All we did was ruin ourselves. Coop will be fine (and Lael).
Do you know that Coop is costing us more cap space this year than he is costing the Browns?
And Lael will cost us more than he is costing the Bengals once we officially release him June 1.
Is that smart? We are paying Coop and Collins to play for other teams. They are good players.
Now we have holes at WR and T. We will either need to invest high picks now (and forgo other pressing needs), or go back to FA after the draft and sign other players. I'll tell you, we won't find anyone as good as Coop or Lael in FA, though we may in the draft.
The truth is the modern NFL has passed the Jones' by. They need professional NFL people to manage this team (we do pretty well in the draft due to Mclay. We need a cap expert, because Jerry and Steven are just not that.
