Verdict
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The Cowboys have done a pretty good job acquiring talent, as evidenced by last year's 13 and 3 season. We have more depth than we have had in some time. All in all, I like the general direction the Cowboys are headed, but there are a few bad moves which are holding this team back. Some of them are:
1. T. Crawford (reasonable risk by the Cowboys) which seems like a bit of a swing and a miss. I wasn't really against this move at the time it was made.
2. Dez Bryant. A very good player, but we over paid for him. He had to play out his entire contract at a top 5 level to justify the contract. Too much risk in that one. So far he has under performed his contract.
3. Jason Witten. This one is a failure on more than one level. First we are paying him way too much of our cap and secondly, he just isn't that great anymore. Other player should be getting some of his touches. He still has value, but not at the price vs. production area he is currently existing.
Having said the forgoing, every team has some of those contracts. The advantage a team gets is having fewer of those contracts vs other teams.
Part of the fallacy NFL teams fall into is believing that there is a "going rate" to sign a player at a current position. Tom Brady might be worth 25 million dollars per year, but Brock Osweiler is not. While no one is going to argue that Osweiler is worth 25 million per year now, some may think he is worth, 10 million per year or something like that.
Smart teams will avoid falling into that trap. If a guy is good enough to be your starting QB, but isn't the future of the franchise, why pay him to be? Why not pay him the minimum plus incentives and save your cap? The Broncos are being smart using Simien and trying to develop Lynch rather than paying some loser to come in and play for $15 million.
The Commanders and Cousins are an interesting case study. There are a lot of different ways of looking at that situation. Some will say that the Commanders have misplayed that situation, and it would be hard to argue that. However the Commanders have avoiding making a long term mistake with a guy that they obviously aren't completely sold on at the present time.
If the Commanders tag Cousins after this year it is going to be a huge part of their cap. I can't see them playing Cousins one more year under their cap NEXT year. They could tag and trade him, but that is risky because Cousins could just sign the tag. I think this year he would be willing to sign a longer term contract, but the tag number would be so high next year, he would probably just prefer to play under the tag.
If the Commanders let Cousins walk after this year, he would probably net them a 3rd round pick as a compensatory pick (in a vacuum, of course). In my opinion the Commanders have not misplayed Cousins so much as they should have been aggressively trying to acquire a young QB to groom out of this draft class. The Commanders did a great job of hedging their bets with RGIII, but have failed to do so with Cousins.
Possibly he best move the Cowboys have made in the past 20 years in terms of hedging their bets on a player was Dak last year, when they anticipated playing Romo all year long last year. That was just in time inventory control at its finest, even if it wasn't really planned that way.
1. T. Crawford (reasonable risk by the Cowboys) which seems like a bit of a swing and a miss. I wasn't really against this move at the time it was made.
2. Dez Bryant. A very good player, but we over paid for him. He had to play out his entire contract at a top 5 level to justify the contract. Too much risk in that one. So far he has under performed his contract.
3. Jason Witten. This one is a failure on more than one level. First we are paying him way too much of our cap and secondly, he just isn't that great anymore. Other player should be getting some of his touches. He still has value, but not at the price vs. production area he is currently existing.
Having said the forgoing, every team has some of those contracts. The advantage a team gets is having fewer of those contracts vs other teams.
Part of the fallacy NFL teams fall into is believing that there is a "going rate" to sign a player at a current position. Tom Brady might be worth 25 million dollars per year, but Brock Osweiler is not. While no one is going to argue that Osweiler is worth 25 million per year now, some may think he is worth, 10 million per year or something like that.
Smart teams will avoid falling into that trap. If a guy is good enough to be your starting QB, but isn't the future of the franchise, why pay him to be? Why not pay him the minimum plus incentives and save your cap? The Broncos are being smart using Simien and trying to develop Lynch rather than paying some loser to come in and play for $15 million.
The Commanders and Cousins are an interesting case study. There are a lot of different ways of looking at that situation. Some will say that the Commanders have misplayed that situation, and it would be hard to argue that. However the Commanders have avoiding making a long term mistake with a guy that they obviously aren't completely sold on at the present time.
If the Commanders tag Cousins after this year it is going to be a huge part of their cap. I can't see them playing Cousins one more year under their cap NEXT year. They could tag and trade him, but that is risky because Cousins could just sign the tag. I think this year he would be willing to sign a longer term contract, but the tag number would be so high next year, he would probably just prefer to play under the tag.
If the Commanders let Cousins walk after this year, he would probably net them a 3rd round pick as a compensatory pick (in a vacuum, of course). In my opinion the Commanders have not misplayed Cousins so much as they should have been aggressively trying to acquire a young QB to groom out of this draft class. The Commanders did a great job of hedging their bets with RGIII, but have failed to do so with Cousins.
Possibly he best move the Cowboys have made in the past 20 years in terms of hedging their bets on a player was Dak last year, when they anticipated playing Romo all year long last year. That was just in time inventory control at its finest, even if it wasn't really planned that way.
