ESPN MacMahon: Cutting Barber makes sense for Cowboys

[Hoofbite]

I think we are getting greedy with this "we need 3 rb's" thing. We already have a great combo with Felix and Choice. Most teams would drool over that. And as we witnessed, the 3rd RB wont get many touches anyways.

See Tashard Choice........

 

[dogunwo]

Get him to Chicago or NO. We need picks.

Really? I dont think we need THAT many picks unless you want them as ammo to trade up. Alot of picks wont make this team

 

[dogunwo]

if you cut him, you then have to draft or pick up another RB somewhere.

Keon Lattimore?

 

[big dog cowboy]

I think we are getting greedy with this "we need 3 rb's" thing. We already have a great combo with Felix and Choice.

In 1992 that team won the Super Bowl and had Emmitt, Tommie Agee and Curvin Richards.

In 1993 that team won the Super Bowl and had Emmitt, Tommie Agee and Derrick Lassic.

In 1995 that team won the Super Bowl and had Emmitt, Sherman Williams and David Lang.

The point is even when the great Emmitt Smith got the overwhelming number of touches every year we always covered ourselved by keeping RB's on the roster just in case.

 

[casmith07]

I've read a lot of the comments...

I think we would regret it a lot more if we let Choice walk instead of Barber at the end of the day.

Anyone remember who carried the ball for much success at the end of the Chiefs game to get us back in it?

 

[Eddie]

If the choice was to keep either Choice or Barber, the answer is simple. Gotta go with the younger back. Barber is almost finished. One more year, and he'll be flat up against the wall.

Choice gives us another 3-4 years of productive work.

 

[Cover 2]

You don't just cut the guy and do it right now. That's why it's a dumb premise.

2010 is uncapped. Keep him around, draft a RB, see how the draft pick does and then look to trade him or release him and then not have to worry about the his cap hit in 2011.

The guy did average 4.4 yards a carry this season. You never know what you can get out of that and for MacMahon to basically say cut him now is really stupid.



YAKUZA

He's also taking away carries from Choice. As long as Barber is on the team Choice will never get the ball.

 

[goshan]

I cut him because I would rather see Choice out there and get another young guy into the mix.

 

[Bleu Star]

This article makes sense.

Get rid of Barber...

Slide my boy Choice into his role.

Start Felix.

Do it Jerry.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

He's also taking away carries from Choice. As long as Barber is on the team Choice will never get the ball.

I understand that. I just think the 'he has no trade value' is a crock. And getting rid of him right now is very stupid. What if we cut him tomorrow and in day 1 of training camp Choice is out for the year? Even if we draft an RB, we still need to go thru the growing pains of having a rookie (particularly with teaching the rookie how to blitz pickup so they don't get Romo killed).

Good things come those who wait it out and then try to make the decision based on what options they have. The Snyders and Al Davis' of the world ut him when they don't have people in place to replace him. And remember things like Richard Seymour. Did anybody think the Pats would get a first rounder for him?

I can't imagine getting a first rounder for Barber, but there's always a chance that a desperate team makes a dumb move. All I'm saying is keep your options open.





YAKUZA

 

[jazzcat22]

i don't know. we already gave Barber the big bonus so it isn't like keeping him is going to break us. We simply need to go into next year with an open competition for snaps.

Right, and if he is going to save money by cutting someone, wouldn't that be RW11.

 

[Taz]

He cannot play FB - he has the wrong body type for the position. FBs are usually built like fire hydrants. He will breakdown quickly at that spot.

His contract is a huge albatross in the era of salary caps.

Jerry will really need to re-think who he gives big money to, who he trades and who he let's walk. He needs to improve his job in fiscal management of the payroll.

Here are the terrible contracts he has given out lately that threaten our ability to be competitive should the cap be re-introduced:

Flo - too much guaranteed money for an old guy
Barber - too much money for a guy with 3 starts
RW11 - just badly misjudged his talent
Hamlin - just vastly overrated his abilities
TO - yes, we already took the hit for this one but I just wanted to remind everyone about it. He was let go before he even hit the first year of his extension.
Davis - really big contract for a very mediocre player

TNew is borderline.

While people may say that he mitigated these mistakes by developing a UDFA like Miles and Romo, I say that this mitigated only the player acquisition side of things. On the fiscal side of things, we didn't get much "cheap performance" out of them. By the time these guys hit the field, they were already approaching FA. From Romo, we got one cheap season. From Miles, we will have gotten one cheap season. So from the fiscal side of things, his succcesses with the UDFAs do not mitigate his failures on the other contracts.

I really think we need to hire a scout whose job it is to rank all the players on the roster versus their counterparts in the league and decide what is a reasonable salary to pay them. Any guy whose demands vastly exceeds his abilities should be shown the door. He seemed to do this with Canty so I'm hopeful that he is finally learning this part of the game. The next part he has to learn is how to get value when we have hit the end of the line with a player. The Pats traded Seymour to the Raiders for a first rounder. We cut Ellis who signed with them and we got nothing. Seymour is not that much better of a player than Ellis and he also isn't that much younger.

plus we just gave a huge contract to ware which almost had a career ending injury

 

[Eskimo]

plus we just gave a huge contract to ware which almost had a career ending injury

When you have one of the top 5 defesive players of the past decade you take a risk and give him the big bonus because he is still young and had a fairly clean injury history coming into the year and played the whole year through injuries at a high level. Plus, he is a high character guy so you don't have too much to worry about.

The fact that he almost had a career ender is just an occupational risk - it is the same for everyone out there on every play.

I suppose you could give no bonuses but then you wouldn't ever be able to sign anybody of significance (including your own draft picks) so you'd have a pretty bad team.