Officially the best offseason ever?

Bullflop

Bullflop

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I think it's safe to say that this offseason had somewhat of a mixed bag of good and not-so-good, although I thought there was more good than bad to be had. To my mind, we jettisoned some mediocre talent and upgraded them with youngsters with considerably more promise.

Of course, the Irving and Lawrence suspensions didn't help and Wilson is another that might be added to the list. Damontre Moore might well be an upgrade to our pass rush and Taco Charlton offers some help with nice upside for the future. Let's not forget about Maliek Collins and Tapper, also. Chidobe Awuzie and Jourdan Lewis should bolster the secondary nicely with Xavier Woods offering nice upside for later in the year.

I think our defense will be much better by midseason at the latest. The pass rush should improve and the secondary should round out well also. Offensively, Dak and Zeke will be another year along in their development. Also, La'el at RT should bolster our pass protection. All in all, I'm seeing substantially more good than bad and a team that should pose a serious threat in the playoffs, if that's to be in the offing.
 
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Pants

Pants

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I try to look at our off-season from the perspective of a fan from another team, not in the NFCE....would they like the moves that were done? would they have wanted a similar approach for whomever their favorite team is? I would think that they would think the following if they were in the same boat (if they were truly unbiased)

1. We rid ourselves from the albatross that was Romo's contract without him potentially playing against us on another team. jealous/smart move
2. We rid ourselves of the three aging secondary members - two of whom never lived up to their potential - and replaced them with uber-talented rookies. scary move, replacing guys that have been in the league a while for unproven rookies
3. We upgraded from Lucky Whitehead to the best return man in the draft - who can also catch the ball and not fumble every time someone breathes on him. jealous/sweet move if he pans out (why didn't my team think of grabbing this guy?)
4. Our two most dynamic young offensive players return with a full offseason for the first time and a year's worth of playing experience at the highest level. jealous/these guys scare me
5. We rid ourselves of an aging, no longer replacement-level right tackle in favor of a top-10 OL prospect who has had two years in a professional offseason weights and conditioning program. "rid yourself" of guy that played 11 years for an unproven player at RT? jury still out, I would wonder what Dak thinks of this
6. We get a full offseason program for our best receiver who no longer has a nagging injury or a contract holdout to worry about. Dez can be dynamic in games, and yet, is non-consistent; not sure if that is his fault or not; I hope when he plays my team that he has one of his "lesser" games
7. We get to see a potential top-3-in-the-draft talent take the field after an injury redshirt year. Jaylon Smith? he was top-3 when healthy/jury still out
8. We return almost our entire D-Line, which is young and developing and played as a top-10 unit the last five weeks of 2016. Oh, and we added a first-round talent to the equation. The Dallas DLine doesn't scare me; they have some young talent, but they also have outside of work issues; not worried about them
9. Our undrafted OL with a ticking time bomb in his knee will be replaced by either a former first-round pick or second-round pick. Good luck with replacing Leary with Cooper - wasn't he cut by the Browns? enough said

In general: "Great off-season"? if churnover is good, then the defense should be much better; the offense scares me
 
Prossman

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We had a smart off season. I trust our draft team so being optimistic is easy. I really like the intensity in the battles between our wrs and dbs.
 
Floatyworm

Floatyworm

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GhostOfPelleur said:
I present the other side of the coin:

1. We rid ourselves from the albatross that was Romo's contract without him potentially playing against us on another team.
2. We rid ourselves of the three aging secondary members - two of whom never lived up to their potential - and replaced them with uber-talented rookies.
3. We upgraded from Lucky Whitehead to the best return man in the draft - who can also catch the ball and not fumble every time someone breathes on him.
4. Our two most dynamic young offensive players return with a full offseason for the first time and a year's worth of playing experience at the highest level.
5. We rid ourselves of an aging, no longer replacement-level right tackle in favor of a top-10 OL prospect who has had two years in a professional offseason weights and conditioning program.
6. We get a full offseason program for our best receiver who no longer has a nagging injury or a contract holdout to worry about.
7. We get to see a potential top-3-in-the-draft talent take the field after an injury redshirt year.
8. We return almost our entire D-Line, which is young and developing and played as a top-10 unit the last five weeks of 2016. Oh, and we added a first-round talent to the equation.
9. Our undrafted OL with a ticking time bomb in his knee will be replaced by either a former first-round pick or second-round pick.
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Punshine Sumper extraordinaire
 
AsthmaField

AsthmaField

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Idgit said:
I hope you're wrong, too. And I know what you think might happen and what actually happen in any given year can be wildly different things. But I will say this. The idea behind signing your own is that it's safer long-term because you're only taking big risks on players you already know fit your system. And you're taking the little risks on players you're unsure about. Organizations that go this route have to play those younger players they've spend time developing, and that's what Dallas does. So, while we didn't go out and sign a big name S, for example, we elevated Jeff Heath. The progress for the draft-and-develop team comes from the young players all getting incrementally better as you let them work into starting jobs over time. Teams that take big risks and hit on them can outperform a draft-and-develop team, for sure. The Giants did a good job of this in year one of last year's big defensive overhaul. Teams that take big risks and lose have a hard time being competitive.

Over time, drafting and developing is safer. If you have a staff that can develop players properly. Since it's a rare team that can win a lot more often than it loses on the big FA signings, I have no problem with the more conservative route. It's less interesting in the offseason, but there's enough evidence of teams like PIT and GB and, now, DAL doing it well and fielding competitors with it every year. I'm disappointed we didn't use more of the resources we do have to do more on defense, but other than that, I think we're in pretty good position.
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Good post.

The main problem with free agency this offseason at the positions the team would have been interested in, was that there just wasn't the right people available (as others have already mentioned). There simply wasn't many pass rushers or corners available.

For this current iteration of Dallas talent acquisition, there has to be a pretty narrow set of things in a player if they're going to spend big: The guy has to be pretty young so he will have time to play out his contract without ending up with dead money on the cap. He has to be well known to love football and be competitive to the point of really working on his game. In other words, they want to make sure he isn't going to become complacent when he gets paid all that money. They want to make sure his personality fits in with the current locker room and make sure he has a team first attitude. (a lesson learned in full during the Greg Hardy experiment). And he needs to play a position that Dallas feels comfortable spending big on, and they feel like can make a difference.

Even then, the team's philosophy is that you don't get into a bidding war and pay crazy money.

So, that is a relatively narrow set of circumstances that have to fall just right in order for Dallas to pull the trigger on a blue chip free agent. Few, if any players fit that this year.

AJ Bouye probably fit a lot of those criteria but once Jacksonville got involved it was clear that the bidding was going to get out of hand rather quickly, so Dallas didn't get into it.

Word is they would have been interested in JPP had he become available but we don't know that for sure. The team isn't going to spend just to spend. And again, they weren't going to do anything if the price gets out of whack.

Like you, I agree with the conservative nature that the Cowboys have entered free agency with lately. I think it is by far the best way to build a franchise that is viable long-term.

I do think they'll partake more in free agency next offseason and will probably be prepared to over-pay some for a really good player at an important position. Again though, the player will have to fit their criteria and like I said... they aren't going to spend just to spend.
 
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