Cowboys are Lifting the Floor not Raising Their Ceiling

[Flamma]

I agree to some extent, but we're still scraping the supposed scum off the floor and hoping it's not scum. What we pay means we either get low-cost players who have not proven worthy of much compensation (Turner, Elam, Sanborn, Murray, Williams, Campbell, Jones) or players nearing the end of their career (Thomas, Sanders, Fowler).

It's understandable that you have to add some of those kind of FAs, but that doesn't mean you've improved the position. You may have just swapped one low-quality player for another and in some cases, you may have gotten worse (Lewis for Elam, Turner for Lawrence/Golston, for instance).

Now, we still have the draft to go, but we didn't use free agency to clearly improve the roster. Our pro scouts/coaches have to be proven to have been right about their evaluations of these low-cost FAs for that to happen. Of course, like you said, at least this time we seemed to be picking the low-cost FAs that we wanted from the start instead of waiting for them to be picked through and then choosing from what was left. We'll see if that changes anything.

I agree completely. I find the last part interesting. How much will that really matter? It's akin to me picking through my neighbor's garbage before the bears get to it. Upgraded pieces? I guess. But it's still garbage.

 

[kskboys]

Jerry isnt doing this lol, he doesnt even know any of the guys they signed, except fowler.
I think maybe jerry and or his boy laid out a budget, so mcclay and shot are working within that.

If you still think cowboys are a 9 win team after the draft , pm me and I might bet with you on that.

Unless Dak gets hurt, that is exactly what they are. Relevance, that's what all these signings are about.

 

[plasticman]

They are definitely in need of an historic draft.

Good luck with that.

They have great analytics, lousy decision makers.

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

You missed the point.

They just did what they always do. Every year they sign JAGs like we did this year and they are never more than depth pieces at best.

While other teams use FA for both depth and to try to fill some key needs, we just sign guys that largely end up as warm bodies to fill out a roster.

If your point is we just signed more JAGs than we did last year, I mean I guess you can be happy about it but at the end of the day it’s the same situation - a team with a ton of holes, ignored in FA and some misguided belief that the draft will solve our problems.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Oh I get that.

You just call every signing ever a JAG as if they are all exactly the same. Pretend they all failed. I reject your category categorically.

Last couple years were certainly piss poor FA performance. OTOH, Kearse, Hooker, and others started and contributed from the same source. Prima facie your category is trash.

Just make your sig, 'everything sucks' and stop pretending your inflammatory categorization is based on reality.

What you are doing is the opposite of detailed analysis.

That was not all you said though. You said that what they did had no value. You ignored that to go with this JAG dismissal.

Haiving injury replacements that are not street FA does help a team. Is it going to win a playoff game? No but it will help you get snakenit by injuries and wreck a season over a span of a few weeks.

You recall the LB performance when Kendricks and OVershown got injured last season?

Oh wait they are all JAGs and that is all the thought you will put into it.

 

[gimmesix]

I agree completely. I find the last part interesting. How much will that really matter? It's akin to me picking through my neighbor's garbage before the bears get to it. Upgraded pieces? I guess. But it's still garbage.

I don't know. Obviously, the players are flawed because they wouldn't be available for cheap if they weren't. So it may end up not mattering when we got them. I just think that there at least is a decent reason or thinking behind who we targeted because we chose the garbage instead of waiting to see what remained in the trash after it had been picked through. It's kind of like being a homeless person finding a day-old steak to eat when you dumpster dive instead of licking the week-old remnants out of a mostly empty can of beans. It probably will still make you sick, but there's at least a slightly better chance that it won't.

 

[shabazz]

Oh I get that.

You just call every signing ever a JAG as if they are all exactly the same. Pretend they all failed. I reject your category categorically.

Last couple years were certainly piss poor FA performance. OTOH, Kearse, Hooker, and others started and contributed from the same source. Prima facie your category is trash.

Just make your sig, 'everything sucks' and stop pretending your inflammatory categorization is based on reality.

What you are doing is the opposite of detailed analysis.

That was not all you said though. You said that what they did had no value. You ignored that to go with this JAG dismissal.

Haiving injury replacements that are not street FA does help a team. Is it going to win a playoff game? No but it will help you get snakenit by injuries and wreck a season over a span of a few weeks.

You recall the LB performance when Kendricks and OVershown got injured last season?

Oh wait they are all JAGs and that is all the thought you will put into it.

Do you realize that the ENTIRE sports media is saying that Jerry's free agency is among the worst in the NFL?

Do you realize that the Cowboys (despite spending earlier than last season) are ranked the 28th lowest spending team in THIS FA period.

Maybe you should stop besmirching the character of the fans here when they are right about facts just because it's an inconvenient truth for you.

Rethink this praise you are lavishing on this FO because there's not a speck of evidence to support it.

BTW., I was able to communicate this message without attacking your character

 

[gtb1943]

Do you realize that the ENTIRE sports media is saying that Jerry's free agency is among the worst in the NFL?

Do you realize that the Cowboys (despite spending earlier than last season) are ranked the 28th lowest spending team in THIS FA period.

Maybe you should stop besmirching the character of the fans here when they are right about facts just because it's an inconvenient truth for you.

Rethink this praise you are lavishing on this FO because there's not a speck of evidence to support it.

BTW., I was able to communicate this message without attacking your character

you did well in not doing so

the self righteous types who are never wrong are hard to not insult

 

[MoistMayonnaise]

Stacking dead bodies on the floor is not raising the floor.

 

[DandyDon52]

Unless Dak gets hurt, that is exactly what they are. Relevance, that's what all these signings are about.

Not really, fowler was a good signing, and some of the other guys may turn out to be good players.
So many signed with their own team, there wasnt much of value left.
Guys like metcalf , kupp, just are not worth what they got elsewhere.

I want to see how they do in the draft now.

 

[Sydla]

Oh I get that.

You just call every signing ever a JAG as if they are all exactly the same. Pretend they all failed. I reject your category categorically.

Last couple years were certainly piss poor FA performance. OTOH, Kearse, Hooker, and others started and contributed from the same source. Prima facie your category is trash.

Just make your sig, 'everything sucks' and stop pretending your inflammatory categorization is based on reality.

What you are doing is the opposite of detailed analysis.

That was not all you said though. You said that what they did had no value. You ignored that to go with this JAG dismissal.

Haiving injury replacements that are not street FA does help a team. Is it going to win a playoff game? No but it will help you get snakenit by injuries and wreck a season over a span of a few weeks.

You recall the LB performance when Kendricks and OVershown got injured last season?

Oh wait they are all JAGs and that is all the thought you will put into it.

The vast majority of these bargain signings end up being JAGs. A few succeed, most simply are bodies that are typically expendable and a dime a dozen.

The Cowboys simply do not use FA to try to upgrade or make a position better. They pretty much admit this as Jerry and Stephen have both said that the draft is where they look for real solutions and for their impact guys.

They have zero desire to go out and sign a legitimate free agent that can solve a problem for them immediately. It's still the same caliber of FA that more often than not really doesn't do much to help the team. If people want to be impressed or give Jerry kudos for what he has done thus far, great. But the reality is this is just the same old stuff from Jerry and his son.

Like always, we now head to the draft with the need for 3-4 impact players at various positions and the odds of hitting that in one draft are very low. It's a flawed strategy that somehow, each year, people defend and think may work despite a decade of it failing.

 

[Sydla]

Do you realize that the ENTIRE sports media is saying that Jerry's free agency is among the worst in the NFL?

Do you realize that the Cowboys (despite spending earlier than last season) are ranked the 28th lowest spending team in THIS FA period.

Maybe you should stop besmirching the character of the fans here when they are right about facts just because it's an inconvenient truth for you.

Rethink this praise you are lavishing on this FO because there's not a speck of evidence to support it.

BTW., I was able to communicate this message without attacking your character

Let's look at his example of Hooker and Kearse.

Both were decent enough players for us at least initially. Kearse parlayed his success his first year into a two year deal and regressed from there (got hurt). Hooker also started off well but clearly regressed in his time here as well.

But in that same offseason we also signed:

Corey Clement
Jeremy Sprinkle
Ty Nsekhe
Brent Urban
Carlos Watkins
Tarell Basham
Damontae Kazee
Keanu Neal
Jake McQuaide

We also signed Anger, but he's a punter and kickers/punters get signed all the time. The best on that list was Watkins and he was still a JAG. Hooker and Kearse were nice but neither were needle movers. This offseason is likely going to be no different than that one where a FA class lacks real high level help and the front office hoping/thinking their draft picks will deliver immediate, franchise changing performances. It's flawed thinking. It just is.