It seems to me, that the main ones that keep asking and worrying if we can afford Cooper are the main ones that don’t seem to understand the salary cap.
It’s been more than proven that re-signed deals and money of others can be re-constructed, manipulated and moved around to address another certain prioritized player.
It’s not a question of afford, as we are easily among the leading teams with the most available cap space in the NFL, it’s
1) a question of market value, is he worth the demanded price that his camp could/has set his market price tag for ?
Is he demanding Julio Jones highest paid WR in NFL, 30+ mill a year, .. or is it in the Michael Thomas price range area? What is the guaranteed bonus that’s going to be staged ?
2) Also the Cowboys want to find out what is going to be set stage for Dak’s future monster contract as to fully guaranteed bonus, roster, annual, pro rated ,spread out this/that years
those well calculated numbers has to be known and established before they liked to attend to Cooper.
- If the Cowboys could have re-signed Dak this season , i believe they would have likely re-signed Cooper to his own deal.
But the Dak deal (and lack there of) appears to have slowed and halted both deals and now it’s a matter of seeing if a deal can be hammered out soon as season over
. or is it going toward franchise tag, - to which if there becomes a franchise tag, involved with Dak,
that along will surely tie up the 2020 roster cap alone, and halt a number of areas and movement in FA, if there’s no progress.
Cowboys may be forced to use a transitional tag towards Cooper, which could force another NFL team to match Cowboys offer or submit substantial draft pick compensation to
acquire him. (so i'm hearing)
You always hear that you cannot re-sign everyone – that appears right, ....as you prioritized the top, cornerstone players and seriously go after re-signing them,
While you let go the B-tier and serviceable types FA agents on your roster. you don’t sign or re-sign average players to big long term contract (ala Barry Church, Anthony Hitchens, Damien Wilson, etc.)
You don’t overcommit to B-Tier players either., ala Demarco Murray, Byron Jones , you give them B-Tier take it or leave it offers (at best) , .. same gonna be likely said with Robert Quinn and Michael Bennett.
And the Maliek Collins,..Tyrone Crawford (cap casualty) Atuwann Woods, ..Anthony Browns,.. jeff heath, ..sean lee,.. Jason witten, you let them move on, per FA or cap cut.