Offseason Thoughts: Cowboys should have sold high on Prescott

Galian Beast

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I strongly believe the Cowboys should have sold high on Prescott last year.

When Romo was healthy and able to return last year, he should have been reinserted into the starting position and I believe we would have gone further in the playoffs as a result. More importantly though, this team that was built around Romo should have sold Prescott to the highest bidder while they could. You probably could have gotten two first round draft picks or a first and a second for Prescott last year.

That would have gone a long way towards infusing talent into the defense.

Instead, we ended up getting nothing for Romo except his dead money against the salary cap. Regardless of how you felt about Romo and Prescott, this was the worst possible outcome. The team went all in on Romo (drafting a running back 4th overall is going all in) and then decided to deviate because of some success Prescott had early in his career. Financially, that was a huge gamble, and while this story has yet to be written, I'm convinced it won't pay off.

I don't want to belabor this argument, we've discussed this ad nauseam, but you now have an offensive crisis where we're saying our receivers and offensive line aren't any good. The same units who in 2014 were among the best in the league and improving.

The offense is extremely cap heavy and isn't nearly as productive as it needs to be (14th in the NFL). Many people will blame the suspension and injury to Smith. So, we're now wholly reliant on two players being healthy and available in order for this team to operate (Elliott and Smith).

Elliott is a running back and is not likely to stay healthy for the duration of his time with the Cowboys. Smith and his back will ONLY get worse. Now we're in a position where we're going to have to re-sign Zach Martin and the offense will become even more salary cap heavy...

Is Prescott going to turn into Brees overnight? If your answer is no, you have to realize this front office needs to make some hard decisions and quickly. Even with improvement, if he can't carry an offense minus a few star players, you can't expect to build around him and have a stout defense.

I think this defense has a lot of potential, but the timing hasn't exactly been perfect. Rather than putting all of our eggs in one basket with Lawrence and Irving, I think it would be prudent to instead focus on rebuilding the defensive line through the draft, similar to what we did with the secondary. Money should be spent on highly reliable free agents. The front seven should be the primary focus on this draft.

Depending on what it would cost to trade for and sign Earl Thomas, I would take a serious look at getting him and moving Jones back to corner. Under Richards, our secondary could become a legitimate unit in the NFL.
 

Blake

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I strongly believe the Cowboys should have sold high on Prescott last year.

When Romo was healthy and able to return last year, he should have been reinserted into the starting position and I believe we would have gone further in the playoffs as a result. More importantly though, this team that was built around Romo should have sold Prescott to the highest bidder while they could. You probably could have gotten two first round draft picks or a first and a second for Prescott last year.

That would have gone a long way towards infusing talent into the defense.

Instead, we ended up getting nothing for Romo except his dead money against the salary cap. Regardless of how you felt about Romo and Prescott, this was the worst possible outcome. The team went all in on Romo (drafting a running back 4th overall is going all in) and then decided to deviate because of some success Prescott had early in his career. Financially, that was a huge gamble, and while this story has yet to be written, I'm convinced it won't pay off.

I don't want to belabor this argument, we've discussed this ad nauseam, but you now have an offensive crisis where we're saying our receivers and offensive line aren't any good. The same units who in 2014 were among the best in the league and improving.

The offense is extremely cap heavy and isn't nearly as productive as it needs to be (14th in the NFL). Many people will blame the suspension and injury to Smith. So, we're now wholly reliant on two players being healthy and available in order for this team to operate (Elliott and Smith).

Elliott is a running back and is not likely to stay healthy for the duration of his time with the Cowboys. Smith and his back will ONLY get worse. Now we're in a position where we're going to have to re-sign Zach Martin and the offense will become even more salary cap heavy...

Is Prescott going to turn into Brees overnight? If your answer is no, you have to realize this front office needs to make some hard decisions and quickly. Even with improvement, if he can't carry an offense minus a few star players, you can't expect to build around him and have a stout defense.

I think this defense has a lot of potential, but the timing hasn't exactly been perfect. Rather than putting all of our eggs in one basket with Lawrence and Irving, I think it would be prudent to instead focus on rebuilding the defensive line through the draft, similar to what we did with the secondary. Money should be spent on highly reliable free agents. The front seven should be the primary focus on this draft.

Depending on what it would cost to trade for and sign Earl Thomas, I would take a serious look at getting him and moving Jones back to corner. Under Richards, our secondary could become a legitimate unit in the NFL.

Stopped reading at "When Romo was healthy..."
 

IheartRomo

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Romo was done - not in an ability-sense but his body had completely given out on him. We had little choice but to move on from him whether it was week 8 of 2016, beginning of 2017, or now. He was far more likely to never stay healthy again than he was to just pick up like nothing had ever happened.

/thread
 

ChronicCowboy

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Yes but everyone was on board with Dak in 2016. Everyone kept saying how stupid we would be to put Romo back in.

I don’t necessarily think it was the wrong decision at the time. It was sorta bad luck that Dak looked better than he really was. Anyone with the slightest amount of foresight saw a sophomore slump coming with Dak. He does not have any exceptional skills and needs the offense to be at 100% in order to have success. In other words he’s a decent backup.
 

CowboysRule

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Romo was done - not in an ability-sense but his body had completely given out on him. We had little choice but to move on from him whether it was week 8 of 2016, beginning of 2017, or now. He was far more likely to never stay healthy again than he was to just pick up like nothing had ever happened.

/thread
A defensive lineman landed on his back in a seated position basically. That's a freak hit.

He picked up where he left off on that last Eagles drive. The only scoring drive of that game, playing with the backups.
 

JustChip

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I strongly believe the Cowboys should have sold high on Prescott last year.

When Romo was healthy and able to return last year, he should have been reinserted into the starting position and I believe we would have gone further in the playoffs as a result. More importantly though, this team that was built around Romo should have sold Prescott to the highest bidder while they could. You probably could have gotten two first round draft picks or a first and a second for Prescott last year.

That would have gone a long way towards infusing talent into the defense.

Instead, we ended up getting nothing for Romo except his dead money against the salary cap. Regardless of how you felt about Romo and Prescott, this was the worst possible outcome. The team went all in on Romo (drafting a running back 4th overall is going all in) and then decided to deviate because of some success Prescott had early in his career. Financially, that was a huge gamble, and while this story has yet to be written, I'm convinced it won't pay off.

I don't want to belabor this argument, we've discussed this ad nauseam, but you now have an offensive crisis where we're saying our receivers and offensive line aren't any good. The same units who in 2014 were among the best in the league and improving.

The offense is extremely cap heavy and isn't nearly as productive as it needs to be (14th in the NFL). Many people will blame the suspension and injury to Smith. So, we're now wholly reliant on two players being healthy and available in order for this team to operate (Elliott and Smith).

Elliott is a running back and is not likely to stay healthy for the duration of his time with the Cowboys. Smith and his back will ONLY get worse. Now we're in a position where we're going to have to re-sign Zach Martin and the offense will become even more salary cap heavy...

Is Prescott going to turn into Brees overnight? If your answer is no, you have to realize this front office needs to make some hard decisions and quickly. Even with improvement, if he can't carry an offense minus a few star players, you can't expect to build around him and have a stout defense.

I think this defense has a lot of potential, but the timing hasn't exactly been perfect. Rather than putting all of our eggs in one basket with Lawrence and Irving, I think it would be prudent to instead focus on rebuilding the defensive line through the draft, similar to what we did with the secondary. Money should be spent on highly reliable free agents. The front seven should be the primary focus on this draft.

Depending on what it would cost to trade for and sign Earl Thomas, I would take a serious look at getting him and moving Jones back to corner. Under Richards, our secondary could become a legitimate unit in the NFL.

There may be some validity to what you're saying about trading Dak, but the problem is you're making this point with hindsight. There is not one team, other than maybe the Patriots, that would've done that. Virtually the whole world was raving about Dak and was the "franchise" QB of the future and you simply don't trade a franchise QB.

The jury is still out on Dak, but frankly, it's still out on Goff and Wentz IMO. Let's see how they all function going forward. Can Goff or Wentz "carry" their team? I seriously doubt it, at least not at this point. It all of their cases, they need a high caliber team around them, especially on defense.

I agree on building the defense (but not on letting D Law and Irving walk). I know there wasn't a lot of defense played last night, but when the Eagles' coaching staff scored and left Brady enough time on the clock to score to win (just as Garrett has been criticized for btw), it was their defense that preserved the win. Keeping D Law and Irving, at least for this year, franchising D Law and a 1st round tender on Irving, is critical making the step forward. You lose those 2 and you've added significantly to the defensive needs at a time when you're finally getting the pieces. That simply would set the defense back at least 1 year and probably 2-3.
 

HungryLion

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You want to”build the defensive line through the draft”. But want to get rid of Irving and Lawrence?

Lawrence and Irving are part of the building the team has been trying to do for years now. Lawrence was a high draft pick and Irving was a developmental player that the team sunk years into.

They ARE the building of a defensive line.
 

G2

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The continued Romo mourning on this forum has gotten flat out disturbing.
I was a huge defending and supporting fan, but sadly some here believe he is STILL the answer and can play at a high level. So many comparisons to a 2 year QB.
 

CPanther95

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Finding a franchise QB can take a team a decade and multiple 1st round picks. The odds of getting one with a 4th rounder are near zero.

If there is even a slim chance you may have landed one with a 4th, you don't trade him away, you wait and see if he develops.

Whether he works out or not shouldn't affect their long term plan. They couldn't have been planning on snagging a franchise QB in 2016 or they wouldn't have only spent a 4th. They were in prime position to move up and grab one of the 2 near sure things available that draft if a franchise QB was the priority.
 
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