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The Cowboys have ruffled a few of their fan’s feathers by staying on the sideline in 2019 free agency. They entered the offseason with around $50 million in salary cap space, but are using 40 percent of it on a one-year arrangement with a star player. As Jason Garrett enters what could be his final season as Dallas head coach, with a contract that doesn’t extend past this season, the organization isn’t changing their recent philosophy about team building.
Whether Garrett would like the team to change their recent course and spend big to acquire a couple mercenaries is unknown. But even if he did, executive VP Stephen Jones would be having none of it. Outside of a select few forays here and there — a 2018 pursuit of Sammy Watkins to replace Dez Bryant, a 2019 flirtation with safety Earl Thomas — Jones is not a fan of free agency, as he relayed to Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer this weekend.
Breer uses the small sample size of the 2018 playoff class to find that five of the six teams who have spent the least in the 2019 free agency period were clubs that made the playoffs, and 10 of the 12 playoff squads are in the bottom 14 of spending. The exceptions are Philadelphia and Baltimore, with the latter losing a considerable amount of firepower from their 2018 roster in free-agency defections.
While this correlation is linked to causation, inferring smarter teams don’t believe in the free agency market, there could be another simpler reason.
Jones’ case that the Cowboys have plenty of in-house talent is the team’s standard defense and isn’t new just because the cast of characters has changed. The team does have to pay several young stars such as QB Dak Prescott, RB Ezekiel Elliott, and DE DeMarcus Lawrence, who is the 40 percent being used of this year’s space thanks to a second consecutive franchise tag. No player who’s been tagged twice has reached a long-term deal with the same organization, so for all the bluster that is the Cowboys’ strategy of paying their own, they will have to buck tradition to come out of this scenario with a happy ending.
They also have two more years of contractual control of Elliott, with the fifth-year option in 2020. The article lists CB Byron Jones among the young stars, as he made second-team All-Pro this past season. Jones however doesn’t have multiple seasons of exemplary play like the other three.
Dallas also has to pay WR Amari Cooper, who they traded away a first-round pick for mid-season.
In explaining the Cowboys situation, Jones makes a strange claim in discussing two future costs.
Jaylon Smith and Leighton Vander Esch are certainly stud linebackers, but why is Jones pretending Sean Lee’s $7 million-a-year deal in 2013 wasn’t a well-paid one when signed in 2013?
Regardless, Smith is an RFA in 2020 and Vander Esch will have a fifth-year option for 2022. The team certainly wants to keep the band together, but those seem like weird flexes as reasons why to not spend now. The cap can be maneuvered in many fashions to create space necessary to identify and grab.
The offensive linemen of course are already paid for, as Tyron Smith, Travis Frederick and Zack Martin are all locked in through the 2023 seasons, with the latter through 2024.
Dallas is certainly in a unique situation in having young, star talent at premier positions. They also have made things difficult on themselves.
The club could have certainly paid Lawrence on a long-term deal before 2018, saving cap space from his franchise tag hit of $17 million. That space could have rolled into 2019, where they could also have more room from what would have been a bargain rate compared to the $20 million-plus hit they are sustaining now. But they didn’t make the investment when things were less costly and now find themselves with other things being impacted.
If they had done so, would Dallas have moved differently than they have been this offseason? Extensions now for Lawrence and Cooper would create an abundance of space in 2019 that could be used for the big payday coming for Prescott. The team has a philosophy question in whether to pay Elliott or not, although they are saying all of the right things, including that negotiations will start at where Todd Gurley’s extension sits. Gurley is the highest-paid running back.
It feels as if the organization is trying to buy some time by letting Elliott know they intend to pay him, but maybe that doesn’t come this offseason.
The Cowboys will certainly be making other moves over the next few weeks and leading up to a draft where they don’t have a first rounder thanks to the Cooper acquisition. They are only interested in getting the best bargains, however, and do not want to be burned by any big money deals which may hold more risk than reward.
Breer’s article fails to point out that those “two of the three lightest spenders” who played in the Super Bowl include the Los Angeles Rams, who spent mightily in 2018 in order to get there. The winning team’s best player that day, New England’s Stephen Gilmore, was a huge free agent signing the year prior.
Those teams spent to reach a level Dallas hasn’t achieved in recent years, so acting “just like them” in 2019 free agency is quite a bit misleading.
Why let minor details like that get in the way of a narrative though.
Gallery
Cowboys 7-round Mock Draft: March 15, 2019
Continue reading...
Whether Garrett would like the team to change their recent course and spend big to acquire a couple mercenaries is unknown. But even if he did, executive VP Stephen Jones would be having none of it. Outside of a select few forays here and there — a 2018 pursuit of Sammy Watkins to replace Dez Bryant, a 2019 flirtation with safety Earl Thomas — Jones is not a fan of free agency, as he relayed to Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer this weekend.
“The biggest thing is just that free agency, I just don’t think you can make a living there,” Dallas COO Stephen Jones said over the phone around lunchtime on Sunday. “That’s what we’ve always said. I think you’re overpaying in free agency most of the time. [Free agents] are overvalued, because you’re competing in a market where you’ve got teams that don’t have as many players they have to spend on, have to use cap space on.
“And the other thing is, I don’t think you’re ever one player away. It’s a building process. You’ve got to have some really good quarterbacking to win championships, but you’ve got to put a good team around him. That whole theory that you’re one player away, it’s one that we don’t buy into like you might’ve in the past.”
Breer uses the small sample size of the 2018 playoff class to find that five of the six teams who have spent the least in the 2019 free agency period were clubs that made the playoffs, and 10 of the 12 playoff squads are in the bottom 14 of spending. The exceptions are Philadelphia and Baltimore, with the latter losing a considerable amount of firepower from their 2018 roster in free-agency defections.
While this correlation is linked to causation, inferring smarter teams don’t believe in the free agency market, there could be another simpler reason.
“It’s just a bad class,” said one NFC exec. “This class was always ‘buyer beware.’ Even the guys who got franchised, not that they’re one-year wonders, but players like Frank Clark, Dee Ford—it’s more just that you wouldn’t be sure if you would want to go invest significantly in them.”
Jones’ case that the Cowboys have plenty of in-house talent is the team’s standard defense and isn’t new just because the cast of characters has changed. The team does have to pay several young stars such as QB Dak Prescott, RB Ezekiel Elliott, and DE DeMarcus Lawrence, who is the 40 percent being used of this year’s space thanks to a second consecutive franchise tag. No player who’s been tagged twice has reached a long-term deal with the same organization, so for all the bluster that is the Cowboys’ strategy of paying their own, they will have to buck tradition to come out of this scenario with a happy ending.
They also have two more years of contractual control of Elliott, with the fifth-year option in 2020. The article lists CB Byron Jones among the young stars, as he made second-team All-Pro this past season. Jones however doesn’t have multiple seasons of exemplary play like the other three.
Dallas also has to pay WR Amari Cooper, who they traded away a first-round pick for mid-season.
In explaining the Cowboys situation, Jones makes a strange claim in discussing two future costs.
“Where it starts to be a logjam is, when you look, we’ve never paid our linebackers a lot of money, and we’ve got two, I think, rare ones in Jaylon and Leighton,” Jones says.
Jaylon Smith and Leighton Vander Esch are certainly stud linebackers, but why is Jones pretending Sean Lee’s $7 million-a-year deal in 2013 wasn’t a well-paid one when signed in 2013?
Regardless, Smith is an RFA in 2020 and Vander Esch will have a fifth-year option for 2022. The team certainly wants to keep the band together, but those seem like weird flexes as reasons why to not spend now. The cap can be maneuvered in many fashions to create space necessary to identify and grab.
“That’ll be where the logjam starts—when you figure out how to pay the pass rusher, the corners, the receiver, the quarterback, the running back, across the board on the offensive line, and then try to pay a couple linebackers.”
The offensive linemen of course are already paid for, as Tyron Smith, Travis Frederick and Zack Martin are all locked in through the 2023 seasons, with the latter through 2024.
Dallas is certainly in a unique situation in having young, star talent at premier positions. They also have made things difficult on themselves.
The club could have certainly paid Lawrence on a long-term deal before 2018, saving cap space from his franchise tag hit of $17 million. That space could have rolled into 2019, where they could also have more room from what would have been a bargain rate compared to the $20 million-plus hit they are sustaining now. But they didn’t make the investment when things were less costly and now find themselves with other things being impacted.
If they had done so, would Dallas have moved differently than they have been this offseason? Extensions now for Lawrence and Cooper would create an abundance of space in 2019 that could be used for the big payday coming for Prescott. The team has a philosophy question in whether to pay Elliott or not, although they are saying all of the right things, including that negotiations will start at where Todd Gurley’s extension sits. Gurley is the highest-paid running back.
It feels as if the organization is trying to buy some time by letting Elliott know they intend to pay him, but maybe that doesn’t come this offseason.
The Cowboys will certainly be making other moves over the next few weeks and leading up to a draft where they don’t have a first rounder thanks to the Cooper acquisition. They are only interested in getting the best bargains, however, and do not want to be burned by any big money deals which may hold more risk than reward.
Breer’s article fails to point out that those “two of the three lightest spenders” who played in the Super Bowl include the Los Angeles Rams, who spent mightily in 2018 in order to get there. The winning team’s best player that day, New England’s Stephen Gilmore, was a huge free agent signing the year prior.
Those teams spent to reach a level Dallas hasn’t achieved in recent years, so acting “just like them” in 2019 free agency is quite a bit misleading.
Why let minor details like that get in the way of a narrative though.
Gallery
Cowboys 7-round Mock Draft: March 15, 2019
Continue reading...