There have been a lot of discussions and concern about the loss of several players from last year, just like there was the year before when we lost other players like Ware, Ratliff, Hatcher, etc. Unfortunately, that is the consequence of having a salary cap. It sometimes means you have to let players go while they can still help your team, but it also helps keep teams from holding on to players too long. It's a normalization process that is tough to deal with as fans, especially when it comes to the extreme ends of that spectrum.
When players' rookie contracts are up, you have to weigh their importance to the team beyond the first season after that. Would Murray be worthy 8 million this year? Absolutely, but would he be worth 8 million next year or the year after that? Not sure about that. Would Parnell be worth $5-6 million this year? What about next year or the year after that? What about Harris? or Carter?
The point is that everyone complaining or concerned about players that we should have resigned for a lot of money this year are only thinking about this season. A lot of the fans who are complaining or pointing out the loss of players as potential season-killing moves would also be the same ones complaining in 2016, 2017, etc. about how Jerry and Co. have poorly managed the salary cap by giving out horrible contracts to backup or declining players. This scenario would be amplified if the Cowboys were to have overpaid for Murray, Harris, Parnell, Spencer, Carter, etc. and then failed to make it to the Super Bowl this or next season.
Am I concerned about finding replacements for the players we lost? Absolutely! Will at the end of the season I look back and blame a non-great year on the loss of those players? Not at all. Why? Because it's not like the Cowboys season was doomed by the loss of those players. Instead, it would mean they did a poor job of replacing them when you consider they had players already on the roster that they had inside knowledge of in their ability to replace the players not resigned and beyond that, they had free agency, the draft and the upcoming post-training camp cuts that will include a lot of veterans that could be signed to reasonable or overpaid (if desperate enough) one or two year contracts rather than long-term cap-harmful contracts.
In the past, the Cowboys front office tried year after year to win by retaining as many of their players as possible which led to salary cap hell year after year filled with overpaid contracts and millions in dead money. They finally started to think beyond the current season like most of the other successful teams. What this does though is put the success or failure of each season more on the front office and coaching staff rather than the players. The best teams trust in their front office and coaching staffs to weather the loss of players without hampering the team's success. Basically, it's time for the Cowboys front office and coaching staff to prove themselves and so far, with this new strategy the last couple of seasons, I think there is obvious reason to be optimistic for a change.
