Cowboys happy with Current Guards?

[Tejano15]

“@nfldraftscout: There is talk tonight that the #Cowboys will keep their starting OGs in place and only make an upgrade at center. Worth watching”

Matt Miller tweet, if its Cooper who upgrades the C spot, I would be ok. Fingers crossed..

 

[Zordon]

It's a smokescreen!!!

 

[ThrowuptheXDez88]

exactly, don't believe a thing you see or hear til draft day.

 

[Tejano15]

It's a smokescreen!!!

I hope your right, we need improvement in the trenches..

 

[udas]

It's a smoke screen or the Cowboys think they won't address the position in free agency and don't think they'll draft anyone who is a day 1 starter.

 

[Hoofbite]

Isn't it a little egotistical to think the rest of the league cares what Dallas does?

Why even say anything if it's lies?

I think it's hilarious that people think that the rest of the NFL is just waiting for any word about what Dallas is doing.

This is an average team, I doubt the rest of the league cares at all.

 

[TheCount]

I wouldn't be surprised in the least if this was true. Jerry wants to save his money for another WR.

 

[Zordon]

I hope your right, we need improvement in the trenches..

I was being sarcastic. We're broke and I believe we intended on drafting defense with that first pick and possibly the 2nd pick as well. They both will be back, not sure if both will be starting.

 

[TheRomoSexual]

Isn't it a little egotistical to think the rest of the league cares what Dallas does?

Why even say anything if it's lies?

I think it's hilarious that people think that the rest of the NFL is just waiting for any word about what Dallas is doing.

This is an average team, I doubt the rest of the league cares at all.

Sounds like someone doesn't negotiate for a living.

 

[Eskimo]

I think we could have up to 2 of the pieces for our interior from the likes of Costa, Livings, Bernardeau, Killer and Leary. It may even be that we have all 3 of those positions with players who could be average next year. There are mitigating factors last year that made it hard to project what the group would be like if not for the set of disastrous injuries that befell the group.

Prior to TC we lost Killer to the ankle injury. Bernardeau also ended up requiring two surgeries in the offseason that affected his strength early in the season to his hip and knee.

Then early in TC Nagy broke his leg and got put on IR. Then Costa hurt his back and only showed up for 1.5 games because he subsequently hurt his ankle. Arkin proved he wasn't ready for primetime and we ended up sending a 7th round pick for Cook who was an okay pass blocker but maybe the worst run blocker in the league at Center.

So as we entered the year we were down to our 5th string Center, an ORG coming off two leg surgeries who barely got any practices in with his new teammates before the season started. Now we also had Livings who started out the year fine before injuring his knee which caused him to miss some time and then come back only to play pretty poorly due to lost agility.

That doesn't take us to the biggest fail of them all in Free who struggled horrifically this year with penalties and QB pressure all year.

Now this year we should have a few tailwinds just based on probability. We shouldn't have such a trainwreck of injuries at Center again and we know this year that Killer should be healthy and that Bernardeau is a pretty good option to fall back on. At LT we have Tyron who should be much better in his age 22 season which is more typically an age for a rookie and he has had some seasoning at LT where he looked much better in the second half of the year. The RT position probably goes to Parnell unless we find someone better in the draft and I do like the improvement he has shown every year in his conversion from basketball player to OL. Now that leaves OG where I think Bernardeau is an okay player who will be much better this year. I think Livings probably has another year in him but I do worry about his quickness. If you add one premium player to this mix I think you have the makings of a pretty good OL.

Right now the way I think it should go down:

Tyron Rookie Costa/Bern/Killer Livings/Costa/Bern Parnell

My personal favorite plausible scenario would be:

Tyron Rookie Bern Costa/Livings Parnell

where the rookie is a trade back to acquire a mid-second round pick somehow. This should still allow us to get our DL at the bottom of the first round that we desperately need.

I'm afraid this is the full extent of what we can do with all our cap restriction. I hope Jerry takes a long look at how he is misallocating resources to create the mess we have with the cap right now but something tells me he won't and we'll continue to give out large contracts to fading players close to age 30. You have to look at all the huge contracts we have right now in Romo, Witten, Rat, Austin, Spencer and Ware. Those players average out to about $57M/year over the courses of their current deals or about half our cap to 6 guys. Right now the only guy who I think is really worth it is Romo with Witten a distant second. I fear Ware is close to done with all his neck/shoulder injuries over the last four years. Spencer looks like he is about ready to tank after a career year. Rat and Austin can't stay fully healthy and are a fragment of their former selves when they do see the field. I guess you can add an above average CB for another $10M/yr and the worst RT in the league at $8M/yr to about $75M/yr to 8 players although these guys are more late 20s.

Jerry needs to learn how to keep a core together. Part of that means trading older players where there is demand instead of signing them to a big extension. If he deals Spencer and finds a new home for Rat I'll be more convinced he has smartened up but I don't hold out much hope for that.

 

[Fla Cowpoke]

Jerrah very well might have said I am going with what we got this year...if they don't win, I am starting all over. Head coach and all. No new deal for Romo. No long term deal for Spencer. Do it with what we have. If not, we have over 30 players that will be in their 4th year or less that will be on the roster.

There is a lot of older vets that we can kick to the curb after this year if we are going to start over. You might not realize it, but we might be in the middle of a purge right now.

 

[Dwight]

Jerrah very well might have said I am going with what we got this year...if they don't win, I am starting all over. Head coach and all. No new deal for Romo. No long term deal for Spencer. Do it with what we have. If not, we have over 30 players that will be in their 4th year or less that will be on the roster.

There is a lot of older vets that we can kick to the curb after this year if we are going to start over. You might not realize it, but we might be in the middle of a purge right now.

If Jerry is thinking liking that he should have blew this up after the season. There was no point in keeping Garrett, franchising Spencer, redoing contracts, etc.

 

[1LoyalCowboyFan]

I think we could have up to 2 of the pieces for our interior from the likes of Costa, Livings, Bernardeau, Killer and Leary. It may even be that we have all 3 of those positions with players who could be average next year. There are mitigating factors last year that made it hard to project what the group would be like if not for the set of disastrous injuries that befell the group.

Prior to TC we lost Killer to the ankle injury. Bernardeau also ended up requiring two surgeries in the offseason that affected his strength early in the season to his hip and knee.

Then early in TC Nagy broke his leg and got put on IR. Then Costa hurt his back and only showed up for 1.5 games because he subsequently hurt his ankle. Arkin proved he wasn't ready for primetime and we ended up sending a 7th round pick for Cook who was an okay pass blocker but maybe the worst run blocker in the league at Center.

So as we entered the year we were down to our 5th string Center, an ORG coming off two leg surgeries who barely got any practices in with his new teammates before the season started. Now we also had Livings who started out the year fine before injuring his knee which caused him to miss some time and then come back only to play pretty poorly due to lost agility.

That doesn't take us to the biggest fail of them all in Free who struggled horrifically this year with penalties and QB pressure all year.

Now this year we should have a few tailwinds just based on probability. We shouldn't have such a trainwreck of injuries at Center again and we know this year that Killer should be healthy and that Bernardeau is a pretty good option to fall back on. At LT we have Tyron who should be much better in his age 22 season which is more typically an age for a rookie and he has had some seasoning at LT where he looked much better in the second half of the year. The RT position probably goes to Parnell unless we find someone better in the draft and I do like the improvement he has shown every year in his conversion from basketball player to OL. Now that leaves OG where I think Bernardeau is an okay player who will be much better this year. I think Livings probably has another year in him but I do worry about his quickness. If you add one premium player to this mix I think you have the makings of a pretty good OL.

Right now the way I think it should go down:

Tyron Rookie Costa/Bern/Killer Livings/Costa/Bern Parnell

My personal favorite plausible scenario would be:

Tyron Rookie Bern Costa/Livings Parnell

where the rookie is a trade back to acquire a mid-second round pick somehow. This should still allow us to get our DL at the bottom of the first round that we desperately need.

I'm afraid this is the full extent of what we can do with all our cap restriction. I hope Jerry takes a long look at how he is misallocating resources to create the mess we have with the cap right now but something tells me he won't and we'll continue to give out large contracts to fading players close to age 30. You have to look at all the huge contracts we have right now in Romo, Witten, Rat, Austin, Spencer and Ware. Those players average out to about $57M/year over the courses of their current deals or about half our cap to 6 guys. Right now the only guy who I think is really worth it is Romo with Witten a distant second. I fear Ware is close to done with all his neck/shoulder injuries over the last four years. Spencer looks like he is about ready to tank after a career year. Rat and Austin can't stay fully healthy and are a fragment of their former selves when they do see the field. I guess you can add an above average CB for another $10M/yr and the worst RT in the league at $8M/yr to about $75M/yr to 8 players although these guys are more late 20s.

Jerry needs to learn how to keep a core together. Part of that means trading older players where there is demand instead of signing them to a big extension. If he deals Spencer and finds a new home for Rat I'll be more convinced he has smartened up but I don't hold out much hope for that.

Looking at history and limited production (game against Ravens) There seems to be real faith in Costa as starting center. They like to stick with their guns. I wonder if our OL coach will determine whether we will keep Free or not.

 

[Hoofbite]

Sounds like someone doesn't negotiate for a living.

You consider putting out blatant misinformation "negotiating"?

:laugh2:

 

[LatinMind]

Isn't it a little egotistical to think the rest of the league cares what Dallas does?

Why even say anything if it's lies?

I think it's hilarious that people think that the rest of the NFL is just waiting for any word about what Dallas is doing.

This is an average team, I doubt the rest of the league cares at all.

Why is it egotistical? Because theres a report about Dallas? Just like theres reports of 31 other teams? I dont get your post at all.

 

[Hoofbite]

Why is it egotistical? Because theres a report about Dallas? Just like theres reports of 31 other teams? I dont get your post at all.

It's egotistical to assume that everything is just "smokescreen".

Every offseason Dallas is apparently the best team in the league to use the smokescreen.

Like other teams even care, or if they did, like they would take anything reported about Dallas seriously at all after multiple years of seeing all these "smokescreens".

Assuming other teams care so much about Dallas that all these smokescreens are nothing more is egotistical.

 

[Eskimo]

Looking at history and limited production (game against Ravens) There seems to be real faith in Costa as starting center. They like to stick with their guns. I wonder if our OL coach will determine whether we will keep Free or not.

I don't have a lot of faith about Costa's back holding up at Center and that really handcuffs you when your Center goes down as it is a hard position to fill. Guards are much more dispensable. So I think it makes more sense to put Bern and Killer in competition at Center as well as any rookie they can draft/sign. Then at OG you have a competition with a premium rookie, Costa, Livings, Leary and the loser of the Killer/Bern battle at Center. Right now Bern would be the favorite based on his play last year.

I know everyone wants to pigeonhole Costa as a Center. However, he is a natural OG and I truly believe his short arms make it hard for him to play Center and get off and moving on the snap. I also think the position the Center holds is much harder on the back then it is at OG.

However, I think there is a very good chance we stick to what we have and get sort of a repeat OL:

Tyron Livings Costa Bern Parnell

Although with only a little bit more expense and more flexibility in thought we could have:

Tyron Rookie Bern Costa Parnell

Now just switching Bern and Costa we don't lose any strength and get quicker at both spots since Costa has trouble snapping and moving to block while Bern has trouble getting off on the snap at OG but not at Center. Costa has proven he can go head to head with the biggest DTs and hold his own just fine (see Paul Solilai in the Miami game in 2011). I really do believe that this flip of the two players gives us a much better OL without any other moves.

Ideally, I do believe all the interior needs to be revamped but I think it will take a couple of years and we need to hit on a mid-round OL for once to make it work.

 

[Fla Cowpoke]

If Jerry is thinking liking that he should have blew this up after the season. There was no point in keeping Garrett, franchising Spencer, redoing contracts, etc.

If you poopcanned Garrett after last year, it would have been more fodder for everyone else. Despite the fact that the team had a ton of injuries he kept them playing hard till they end, even though in many cases they were way outmanned. It coincides with Romo being in his last year. By the same token, you want to give the team a chance. So you sign Spencer, who probably would have been in the top 5-10 at worst for free agent contract size, to a one year deal. For the most part, redoing the contracts really isn't that big of an issue if you are going to clean house. Maybe we do several of the cuts after June 1st to build up some cap space this year that we can carry over next year and minimize some of the dead money.

You just never know what they are thinking in the front office.

 

[big dog cowboy]

“@nfldraftscout: There is talk tonight that the #Cowboys will keep their starting OGs in place and only make an upgrade at center. Worth watching”

NFLDraftScout?

OK.

 

[JonJon]

I don't know why anybody would be surprised. Jerry already said that he feels the team can get by on lesser talent on the OL due to Romo's mobility, and would rather allocated resources to other positions. We needed OL help last year and didn't draft a single player for those positions, so don't get your hopes all up thinking the Cowboys will all of a sudden draft a whole bunch of top tier OL this year. I'm thinking the Cowboys only draft one, and it probably won't be within the first two rounds.