CFZ What Would You Have Done at WR?

[jterrell]

Restructured cooper,, they did it for the money yet STILL haven't used it!

This is not true.
They have 12M in cap space.
Post Coop trade they resigned Kearse and Dorance Armstrong, added Dante Fowler and recently Jason Peters.

NFL teams aim to keep 5-10M in cap space yearly so they can maneuver. Pats have stated they like to keep 10M.
Dallas has 12M and the season isn't over.

Right now DAL only has 9M in space in 2023. With plenty of key free agents after the year.

 

[jterrell]

No doubt. I saw another one that was $13 million. I’d expect Lamb’s to be in the $15 million range by that point.

And I haven’t seen enough to justify it at this point.

Its too early to decide for sure.
But if you do like CeeDee you likely want to "buy that year" with an early extension that adds in the 14M or so as year 1 salary plus the 16-18M yearly going forward.
But ramps up so years 1 and 2 are cap friendly.

Say 5 years 82M.
20M SB
year 1: 2M base
year 2, 2M base 14M Roster bonus. --they flip this to restructure bonus
year 3. 2M base, 10M roster bonus --they flip this to restructure bonus
year 4 17M base
year 5 17M base

year 6 and 7 to be added as ghost/voidable seasons with year 2 and year 3 restructures.

 

[Havic]

Getting rid of Cooper + Wilson was fine. The problem is we didnt bother to sign a notable receiver to replace them. The gamble was Washington would be enough, Lamb would take over as #1, and Gallup would return quickly. 1 outta 3 with the gambles.

 

[817Gill]

It shouldn’t be though. They didn’t get rid of him because he’s a bad player. We know what Coop is. I just don’t think that’s a move you gauge after 2 games. People tried to do it after one. We won’t know if that was the right move until at least the season is over.

Bingo

 

[817Gill]

All good points.. I'll add calling Dak the black Kirk Cousins didn't help Cooper's case either lol. Granted it's purely speculative that it was said, but Dak's relationship with him changed drastically for the worse over the course of last season.

Wow… never heard that rumor. Dallas puts the D in drama lol

Lmao guys that wasn’t real it was from a fake Twitter account and fooled everyone. The same account almost made Trae Young beef with Ja Morant lol please don’t fall victim to this stuff.

Do you honestly think Amari would say something like that lol?

 

[817Gill]

What they should of done is trade Cooper and let Gallup walk. Kept Wilson and Malik Turner.

Man I like Turner and he was a FA after the 49ers cut him. Have no clue why we didn’t get him back. ST guy with quickness and run after catch. He was Cedrick Wilson 2.0.

 

[basel90]

I’ve seen some outlandish reasoning for why the team should have kept the 3 WR’s together. Not sure if we understand how people build rosters but there’s no such thing as paying big deals to 3 WR’s. That just an insane way to allocate your cap funds.

Yes the vaccine and heart/passion issues were thrown around for Coop, but those were more as pros and cons for which WR to keep. The decision to only pay 2 guys moving forward was obvious, they just had to decide who.

The hope is Gallup is a good WR2 at half the cost of Cooper and Lamb steps into the WR1 role and gets the big bucks.

I’m not saying that will happen but the plan wasn’t crazy. Cooper playing well has nothing to do with it, we didn’t trade him due to not being able to play well.

You can’t keep all three once they get off rookie deals and you can’t pay two number 1’s (poor roster management) so you have only two options. A) Cooper and Gallup or B) Lamb and Gallup. Team chose B and it’s not an illogical one. Lamb is younger and was drafted by them. Coop is good but you know his highs. Lamb has the upside to maybe be more so they bet on that.

I know some (most) of us are prisoners of the moment so Coop’s stock is sky high right now while Lamb’s may not be. But by stepping back and looking at the two options outlined in the previous paragraph, what would y’all have done?

I think it was completely logical to bet on Ceedee your first round pick as we know what we have in Cooper.

Amari was up and down even as #1 receiver . Cee dee consistently had more yards production. 20 mil for Amari is crazy .

 

[RustyBourneHorse]

Well I'll say this. I think it showed balls getting rid of him because you wanted to change the make up of this team. I think they want to get more Micah's in here and less Cooper's. Coop represents the "RKG" era of guys. And there are others here that do as well who probably will be seeing their way out too.

Good point

 

[Loso86]

This is not true.
They have 12M in cap space.
Post Coop trade they resigned Kearse and Dorance Armstrong, added Dante Fowler and recently Jason Peters.

NFL teams aim to keep 5-10M in cap space yearly so they can maneuver. Pats have stated they like to keep 10M.
Dallas has 12M and the season isn't over.

Right now DAL only has 9M in space in 2023. With plenty of key free agents after the year.

Point being they STILL could have restructured Cooper and had money to do other things IF they really wanted to WIN this year

 

[BAT]

That’s not what happened according to this article.


According to reports, the defender was willing to accept less money to stay in Dallas, but after agreeing on a dollar amount, the front office wanted to go back in and add a clause to the contract.

This reeks of Stephen and bailing out on the contract. A contract was agreed but then wanted to add language to it? They didn’t want to sign him IMO.

The fact that Jerry had to personally jump into negotiation says different. Cowboys wanted to re-sign Gregory and fully expected to do so but Stephen got petty.

Greed and pettiness are a poor combination.

 

[alicetooljam]

Nobody was trading a first for Cooper. You got a 5th because that’s what he was worth. He’s not Tyreke Hill or Davante Adams….

I feel they couldve got at least a 2nd had they played it more quietly than they did. AJ Brown got a 1st & 3rd and Marquise Brown got a 3rd in the draft.

 

[RoboQB]

I would've kept Cooper. Elite route runner. Game changer.
And I would've told my QB and OC to get him involved early
and often every week.

But now, we're back in the Jerryism, "we don't need a true #1".
Much like the "we don't need a good OL" just prior to Tony Romo
falling apart physically. Soon, we will return to the "let's trade for a "1 WR".

 

[RoboQB]

I feel they couldve got at least a 2nd had they played it more quietly than they did. AJ Brown got a 1st & 3rd and Marquise Brown got a 3rd in the draft.

Actually, Brown and the Ravens 3rd was traded to Arizona for a 1st, 23rd pick overall,
which is crazy.

 

[StarChamber_33]

Lmao guys that wasn’t real it was from a fake Twitter account and fooled everyone. The same account almost made Trae Young beef with Ja Morant lol please don’t fall victim to this stuff.

Do you honestly think Amari would say something like that lol?

As I said previously, it's purely speculative at this point, but something was said or done to cause a rift between them last season. In turn, it didn't help Cooper's case to stay..

 

[ak47kaehu]

Would've retained coop.....traded away Dak.....and invested in a new QB

 

[Robster8989]

Point being they STILL could have restructured Cooper and had money to do other things IF they really wanted to WIN this year

Exactly.
Cooper is costing us 6 mil in cap space this season as dead cap AND not playing for us.
The Browns restructured him and his cap # for them is 4.9 this season.
Now we could not have gotten him that low, due to the signing bonus part of his contract (that got all put on us when we traded him so the Browns escaped that), but we could have easily restructred him down to a 7-8 mil cap # for this season.

So the question is, would you rather have no Coop, 12 mil in cap space and Tolbert, (Our current situation), or would you rather have Coop, 11 mil in cap space and have used that 3rd round pick elsewhere (like Oline or Dline)?
For this season, the answer is likely obvious.
Now next seaon, we will benefit from having traded Coop as it relates to cap space.
But the cap is set to expand tremendously next year and future years.
Most analysts see a 300 mil cap in just 4 years, based on the success of the league and the new TV deals.

NFL contracts are like this.
Coops deal made him among the highest paid WRs in the league the first 2 years, but his APY is currently 14th among WRs.
Next year he will fall even further down the list.
It's really not even about APY, it's about the cap number they occupy, and Coops could have been lowered to about 7 this year.
The Jones' did make it easier next season by moving him, but we sacrificed a chance to compete this year in doing so.
Most top NFL GM's don't do that. They do everything they can to compete this year, and deal with next seasons cap next season.

I saw someone say "20 mil for Coop is insane".
Why?
Because that seems like a lot of money to you?
Coop is in the same ballpark as Williams. Godwin, and Kirk.
Hill just signed for 30 mil APY, and WR salaries are going to continue to rise as the cap rises.
In a few years, 20 mil for a top WR will be a bargain.
I believe that poster is living in the cap world of yesterday.

It's the same reason I would have signed Schultz last year.
Henry got 3/37 (12.5 APY). Andrews got 4/56 (14 APY).
We could have likely signed Schultz in the Henry range 12 APY but below Andrews 14 APY.
But we waited and now the new TE contracts are much higher and will continue to rise.
Schultz may command 16-18 mil in the offseason (as the cap continues to rise).
NFL agents live in the world of future caps, and the cap will skyrocket in future years.

I would have kept Coop, and restructured him as the Browns did. I would also have resigned Schultz last year.
FWIW, I would have also not let Gregory get away, as his cap number is just 2.7 mil higher than Fowler's this season and I believe 14APY for a really good Edge is very reasonable as the cap increases. I would have then used the 2nd and 3rd rounders on positions I saw as more critical, like OL and DL, but that's just me.

 

[Big_D]

I’m never making that Cooper trade to begin with and there would’ve been a vet here in the team’s current state.

 

[fairviewfarmer]

We should have gotten at least a 3rd round pic for Cooper, or kept him. Imo though, he was traded due to off the field decisions he made that Jerry disagreed with. Again Jmo.

 

[doomsday9084]

NO plan??

NO FA moves are working like Maher, Barr, Fowler, Peters(watch he will help), Turpin etc etc

NONE?
how about not ,make that statement after 2 games,Jeez

the whining little floaters around here aren't watching, we just beat the Bengal's without 6 starters including our B/U qb who most here wanted Gilbert and Greir to win the job or a trade for one..

ironic huh ??

No plan, yet the plan is working..how about Let Gallup get back, Washington get back, dak with them a few games maybe wait for 12-15 games to be played to claim there was NO PLAN and its not working LMAO. that was said about Safety at one point now look, those are FAs etc that was said about Corner, now a lot better.

let the pan to develop and show itself.. LMAO

The proof will be the season being sully played out then judge. fans are ridiculous making these wholesale judgments after 2 games with a lot of injuries to key players.

You went on this long rant about a post where I said "Dallas is a great drafting team" in either a ridiculous strawman or just an epileptic fit on your keyboard. I hope you get back on your meds and are OK.

 

[Silverz1972]

Think you have to try to stay young at wr.

love cooper but that is a lot of money to put into a wr. But they probably should have done it before they signed him to a huge contract.

I think you have to let ceedee walk too after his rookie contract.

keep drafting young receivers. What happens when you have to pay a qb 40 million and they aren’t playing like it.