Agree, Brent and Bishop alone give you what you need at the 1 Tech and we have other candidates like Hayden, Okoye, etc. Its not a position you use a premium pick or high FA dollars on or else Shariff Floyd would have been our draft pick two years ago.
With DLaw and Mincey at RDE and Crawford (and maybe Terrell McClain) at the 3 Tech we should be fine at those positions. You would probably be fine at LDE resigning Spencer on an incentive deal and then drafting a DE with pass rush ability in the first round.
These comments about not needing the cap room from restructuring Romo may be a tell that the team doesn't think a high priced DE like JPP or Hardy will be the best way to go, and that they will continue building through the draft.
Every single player both of you guys listed has been nothing but average, except for Mincey having an "above average" year. If we go into next season with this DL we'll once again be "average" and banking on Lawrence because no one else is going to be getting pressure outside of the Mincey/Crawford tandem, which once again, was pretty average. Crawford is the only "good" player on the DL, and he needs better players around him, period. Lawrence has all the potential in the world, but I don't expect him to be a 15 sack guy in his second season.
This defense rotates a lot of players, you don't just say "oh we have 4 guys that can line up at the positions, we're good." It doesn't work like that. Not to mention, it's doubtful Mincey would be starting on any "good" DL in the NFL. He should be the 3-4 guy, a rotational guy to spell the starter. The fact that right now he's our best DE is borderline criminal, even starting the 2015 season with him as a #2 would be a huge disappointment. We should go into camp with enough talent at DE to where it's questionable Spencer is even going to have a job. That's how you build a DL that can rush the passer.
Bishop has potential but he's not going to play 800 snaps next year at a high level. Brent can't stay on the field and Hayden is Hayden so if we can get a talented player there to "start" with either Brent/Bishop spelling them we should absolutely look into it.
Okoye's name shouldn't even be mentioned at this point. People realize this guy was getting his meals through an IV while in a medically induced coma, right? He may never return to the NFL. I'm rooting for him but he's a complete risk at this point, and he was never an All-Pro to begin with. The rest of the guys competing at the 3 are just as risky. McClain is just about the only guy that can play snaps at the 3 right now that's actually reliable.
I'm either adding 1 pro bowler + 1 decent guy on the DL in FA, or I'm adding 2 "good" players. I'm also taking 1-2 in the draft.
We have very little depth and very little talent on the DL. We got lucky with injuries on the DL front this season, but imagine Crawford going down in camp. What's our DT depth look like then? Will we even have another tackle that can generate *any* pressure? If Lawrence gets injured, we're stuck with Mincey and a rookie starting? Who's going to spell these guys because Marinelli rotates all his DL quite a bit?
We need both talent and depth on the DL, in a bad way. If we need to restructure Romo to do it, so be it. Everyone talking about "kicking the can", or "using credit", are the same guys who haven't taken one look at how Romo's restructure allocation actually affects our cap, it's just fun for them to say. A restructure of Romo isn't even that bad given our situation and the future cap numbers. If it means the difference between a top 5 defense or a few extra bucks on a year we're already 60 mill under the cap for, give me the top 5 defense any day of the week.
