in the age of free agency, its hard to develop THEN KEEP A YOUNG GUY. Why develop a guy only to have them leave ? I see your point..and its a good one. But there has to be a middle ground. A MIX. We need to find that sweet spot like the Chiefs, Seattle, Ravens,Patriots, Titans etc.
Depends how teams can.. or decide how they want to manage their cap ...and how much they value that player to want to keep them as a core player.
..and if that player himself wants to commit to that particular team.
For instance, we could have kept Byron Jones... the myth and misunderstanding that still to this day persist among Cowboys fans, is that we could not have
kept Byron and still pay Cooper, and Dak's long term contract demands, even with franchise tag, the Cowboys still money above the cap number and they
can always restructure and move money around to sign the more significant core players they really want to keep.
They could have even kept Robert Quinn, if they really wanted to.. but they had a set price for certain players.
Apparently he was one of those they think they can manage to redirect themselves to younger, long term players.
and if you are gonna get a Middle- ground player, make sure it's an
impact middle ground player. Stephen Gilmore is a impact/middle ground player
Dre Kirkpatrick is
Not a Middle ground player. He's an average- stop gap player. Those are Brandon Carr like deals that dont help get you over the hump.