There is a valid point that with how depleted of talent our defense is, putting $40 mil into a QB at this point might not be the smartest move.
That is the sticky wicket. However, when you have an excellent QB, you have to keep him imo, and build around him. We lucked into Romo and Dak. The rest of the QBs we've had since Aikman have been abysmal. I don't like our chances of getting lucky again with another QB if we do let Dak walk. You have to have a QB worth a salt to have a chance in the NFL, and we have that. What we don't have is a defence. I think we can make signing Dak work. I think the first key is, when we get the high draft pick, try to trade down and add extra picks to our draft capital. The more picks, the better because we'll need all the picks we can get to fix this defence. After that, wherever we end up from the trade down, take the best defencive player possible. Ideally DT so we can stop a bloody run play. Then get the best safety we can get. I think that should be the plan.
Additionally, I think we make a few moves now that will help. 1, cutting Tyron Crawford saves us cap space, and it's not like he's been helping us at all. So, no real loss there. 2. Try to trade Cedric Wilson. I like Cedric a lot, and I vouched heavily for him to be picked by us. However, he's a tradeable. Now, before anyone lambasts me about trading him, we need to start making some moves to fix this defence, and we're probably not going anywhere this year. I'd sell high on Wilson soon. There are teams that need WRs, and we can probably get a good pick for him. We got him in the 6th round. I think we realistically could get him for a 3rd depending on how badly a team might need a slot WR (which I think Wilson has proven to be capable of being). For example, the Titans look great and may need a a slot WR to help take their offense to the next level. I think we could get a 3 from them for Cedric Wilson. I'd also look to try to trade Blake Jarwin in the offseason. I think we can get a good pick for him, and Schultz has proven to be a solid TE for us. This makes Jarwin tradeable for us. So, maybe we can see what we get for him too. I think a 2nd round pick for Jarwin is feasible, but, given his ACL, a 3rd may be more reasonable. This gives us at least 4 3rd round picks at least between likely 1 comp 3rd round pick, the 3rd we'd have anyway, and 2 more 3rd rounders. That is some serious firepower if we want to try and get another first round pick, or stand pat and see what falls to us.
I shall open a thread about this to expound on this thought. However, these are a few things I think we can do that keep Dak here, and help us expedite building this defence.