Say what you will, but Newman was getting his butt whopped on a regular basis towards the end here. The Jenkins hate, however, I never got. We spent a 1st on him and he was young and talented, why not keep him around for cheap?
I agree. Newman had a great career for us but he was getting older, played injured a lot, and was getting burned. I don't have a problem with getting rid of a guy as he starts to get older (although we'd never do that to Romo/Ware/Witten). I don't like how the fans treated him though. He had a great career for us and he got the Roy Williams (safety) treatment. Not to mention, Williams had a great career for us too.
I don't get why we invested so much in Carr and Claiborne though. Like you said, Jenkins was a 1st rounder who made the Pro Bowl and played his butt off for us. He did get injured all the time though (Sean Lee syndrome). But I think Jenkins and Scandrick would have made a solid pair of starting corners and we could have invested heavily into D-line and pass rushers. Instead, we invested heavily in two corners, something we really didn't need.
We're just hypocritical if you ask me. We cut Newman because he was getting old, but we'd never cut Ware or Witten. We cut Jenkins because he couldn't stay healthy, but we'd never cut Sean Lee.