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By Bob Sturm 3h ago
40 days since Super Bowl 53 in Atlanta, 18 days since the NHL Trade Deadline, 14 Days until Rangers Opening Day, and just two days before the NCAA Bracket is submitted…
We often refer to patterns that have been made clear through years and year of following the Dallas Cowboys. These trends help us prepare for what might lie ahead.
That seems appropriate this week, after hearing from many of you about your percolating frustrations that the Cowboys are never particularly active in free agency anymore.
Owner Jerry Jones once had a reputation for signing major free agents. Deion Sanders was a signature deal amidst the comedy of a Pizza Hut commercial when the Cowboys and Jerry Jones vowed to moneywhip their way to continued NFL dominance by locking down the NFL’s best corner to a whopping seven-year, $35 million deal back in 1995.
Jerry reflected on that during one of his many radio shows a few years back. He said that expenditure caused him some high-level anxiety:
“I flew all the way back to my home, where I was really raised, and walked down the street and looked at an old telephone pole where I’d carved something on it when I was a kid and walked around the old houses. And then walked back … down the street, went up to my old house, looked at it just to say, have you completely lost your bearing on what’s happening here financially?” Jones said. “Boy, I got back in the car, headed back out to the airport, came on back, and I said, ‘Look, that was then, this is now. Go for it.”
Times have changed. As has the financial structure of the NFL, with a very hard and unforgiving salary cap. I have often said the only thing that keeps the Cowboys from the sort of dominant run Real Madrid or Manchester United have enjoyed in the world of soccer is simply the structure the NFL desires for parity. There is no question that world soccer offers an opportunity for the richest teams to dominate via financial muscle and the endless resources to not only buy the best players but also to write off poor purchases with a billionaire’s shrug.
That certainly is not an option in the NFL, for better or worse. This league allows powers to emerge from literally any population base and ownership group as long as they can work under the balanced structure of equality. The league is set up to avoid decade-long dominance (or two-decade dominance, New England) and doesn’t seem to mind a world where power shifts at around the same interval as four-year presidential terms or Olympiads. The NFL remains hugely popular, so this does not appear to be a mistake. But the Dallas Cowboys’ endless reserves of cash really don’t seem to matter.
Forbes told us in 2018 that the Cowboys’ franchise value is easily the highest of any team in the world. The franchise was estimated to be worth $5 billion and enjoyed an annual revenue total of $864 million with an operating income of $365 million. The fixed player costs in a salary cap world total $190 million.
I am no financial wizard, but if revenues more than quadruple personnel costs, the Cowboys are the opposite of short on cash. The rules, however, dictate they cannot spend more than Buffalo or Green Bay. Do you know who the busiest teams are every year when the transfer windows open in Europe? The teams with the deepest pockets. If the Dallas Cowboys were a soccer club, they would run the world with the best players at every position. Is Khalil Mack unhappy? Come to Dallas. Odell Beckham and Antonio Brown? Cowboys to be. Sean Payton wants a bigger stage? There’s one in Dallas. And yes, they would have found a price for Aaron Rodgers that Green Bay couldn’t refuse years ago. But it doesn’t work that way. So what should they do with all of this money?
Buy a yacht that costs $250m, silly.
So here we are at the end of the opening week of free agency. The Cowboys have secured three of their own free agents on small deals with Tavon Austin, Cam Fleming, and Jamize Olawale all back in the fold.
Additionally, they signed an interesting young defensive tackle in Christian Covington away from Houston on a surprisingly cheap one-year, $1.6 million deal. None of these moves have produced even a medium-sized wave in the NFL silly season.
If you have been following the Cowboys over the last several seasons, though, you know free agency is not their jam by any stretch of the imagination. Especially in March when prices have not substantially dropped.
In 2018, for instance, they made a number of tiny deals in the month of March (signifying the opening of the free agency window). A year later we are still trying to find the significant effects:
DATE TEAM PLAYER TERMS
(information courtesy prosportstransactions.com)
There was nothing wrong with these signings, of course. A few of them played decent roles with the team last year. As you can see, though, they didn’t really rock the NFL world.
How about March 2017?
DATE TEAM PLAYER TERMS
Nope.
March 2016?
DATE TEAM PLAYER TERMS
We shall not soon forget the four-year Cedric Thornton deal that lasted 13 games and the three-year offer sheet theft of Benson Mayowa.
Perhaps I could interest you in March 2015’s big free agency swoop?
DATE TEAM PLAYER TERMS
That one-year, $13m deal with Greg Hardy at least got a Bob Costas interview and some unwanted publicity for the organization.
Let’s walk back another year. March 2014:
DATE TEAM PLAYER TERMS
Here we find the Henry Melton offseason. I admit I wanted the Henry Melton experience to really rock the foundation around here; I thought he might be the true 3-technique we had been dreaming of. Aside from 15 tackles in 16 games, it also gave us a bit of a disturbance in a Grapevine night spot. But the Melton run did not last a second season.
March 2013?
DATE TEAM PLAYER TERMS
March 2012?
DATE TEAM PLAYER TERMS
This would certainly qualify as the last big-ticket free agent order. The Cowboys’ addition of young Brandon Carr from Kansas City for a princely sum of $50 million over five years guaranteed him $26.5 million. He would play all five years in Dallas under that deal, although the final year included a bit of a pay cut.
I have nothing to report from March of 2011 and 2010. But we have a couple small traces in March of 2009:
DATE TEAM PLAYER TERMS
There you go. That’s a full decade of free agency where we see the Cowboys’ major purchases limited to Brandon Carr in 2012 and Greg Hardy in 2015.
In fairness, it wasn’t always this way.
In 2005, the Cowboys snagged Marco Rivera from Green Bay on a five-year, $20 million deal.
In 2006, they rocked the NFL by signing Terrell Owens to a three-year, $25 million deal (despite Bill Parcells’ protests).
In 2007, they awarded Leonard Davis a huge seven-year, $49 million contract.
Because of big deals for their own players — Tony Romo, Jason Witten, DeMarcus Ware, etc — the Cowboys began to place a premium on keeping their group together, willingly dealing with cap issues and kicking the can of expenditures down the road to make it all fit.
They were able to keep the band together. But when a team spends all of its resources internally, its only way to improve is through the draft. The conveyor belt would keep turning, and they would often put together some decent enough rosters.
But two things have eluded them ever since. Free agency participation to find those final big pieces (which often are a mirage) and postseason success. Whether these two items are tied together so closely is open for debate, of course. But if you cover this team for a living, you seldom have big news in March like so many other franchises seem to get every year.
They still have a few weeks left, but the clock is ticking.
By Bob Sturm 3h ago
40 days since Super Bowl 53 in Atlanta, 18 days since the NHL Trade Deadline, 14 Days until Rangers Opening Day, and just two days before the NCAA Bracket is submitted…
We often refer to patterns that have been made clear through years and year of following the Dallas Cowboys. These trends help us prepare for what might lie ahead.
That seems appropriate this week, after hearing from many of you about your percolating frustrations that the Cowboys are never particularly active in free agency anymore.
Owner Jerry Jones once had a reputation for signing major free agents. Deion Sanders was a signature deal amidst the comedy of a Pizza Hut commercial when the Cowboys and Jerry Jones vowed to moneywhip their way to continued NFL dominance by locking down the NFL’s best corner to a whopping seven-year, $35 million deal back in 1995.
Jerry reflected on that during one of his many radio shows a few years back. He said that expenditure caused him some high-level anxiety:
“I flew all the way back to my home, where I was really raised, and walked down the street and looked at an old telephone pole where I’d carved something on it when I was a kid and walked around the old houses. And then walked back … down the street, went up to my old house, looked at it just to say, have you completely lost your bearing on what’s happening here financially?” Jones said. “Boy, I got back in the car, headed back out to the airport, came on back, and I said, ‘Look, that was then, this is now. Go for it.”
Times have changed. As has the financial structure of the NFL, with a very hard and unforgiving salary cap. I have often said the only thing that keeps the Cowboys from the sort of dominant run Real Madrid or Manchester United have enjoyed in the world of soccer is simply the structure the NFL desires for parity. There is no question that world soccer offers an opportunity for the richest teams to dominate via financial muscle and the endless resources to not only buy the best players but also to write off poor purchases with a billionaire’s shrug.
That certainly is not an option in the NFL, for better or worse. This league allows powers to emerge from literally any population base and ownership group as long as they can work under the balanced structure of equality. The league is set up to avoid decade-long dominance (or two-decade dominance, New England) and doesn’t seem to mind a world where power shifts at around the same interval as four-year presidential terms or Olympiads. The NFL remains hugely popular, so this does not appear to be a mistake. But the Dallas Cowboys’ endless reserves of cash really don’t seem to matter.
Forbes told us in 2018 that the Cowboys’ franchise value is easily the highest of any team in the world. The franchise was estimated to be worth $5 billion and enjoyed an annual revenue total of $864 million with an operating income of $365 million. The fixed player costs in a salary cap world total $190 million.
I am no financial wizard, but if revenues more than quadruple personnel costs, the Cowboys are the opposite of short on cash. The rules, however, dictate they cannot spend more than Buffalo or Green Bay. Do you know who the busiest teams are every year when the transfer windows open in Europe? The teams with the deepest pockets. If the Dallas Cowboys were a soccer club, they would run the world with the best players at every position. Is Khalil Mack unhappy? Come to Dallas. Odell Beckham and Antonio Brown? Cowboys to be. Sean Payton wants a bigger stage? There’s one in Dallas. And yes, they would have found a price for Aaron Rodgers that Green Bay couldn’t refuse years ago. But it doesn’t work that way. So what should they do with all of this money?
Buy a yacht that costs $250m, silly.
So here we are at the end of the opening week of free agency. The Cowboys have secured three of their own free agents on small deals with Tavon Austin, Cam Fleming, and Jamize Olawale all back in the fold.
Additionally, they signed an interesting young defensive tackle in Christian Covington away from Houston on a surprisingly cheap one-year, $1.6 million deal. None of these moves have produced even a medium-sized wave in the NFL silly season.
If you have been following the Cowboys over the last several seasons, though, you know free agency is not their jam by any stretch of the imagination. Especially in March when prices have not substantially dropped.
In 2018, for instance, they made a number of tiny deals in the month of March (signifying the opening of the free agency window). A year later we are still trying to find the significant effects:
| 3/21/18 | Cowboys | • Joe Thomas | signed free agent to a 2-year, $3.6M contract through 2019 |
| 3/22/18 | Cowboys | • Deonte Thompson | signed unrestricted free agent to a 1-year, $1.8M contract |
| 3/23/18 | Cowboys | • Allen Hurns | signed free agent to a 2-year, $12M contract through 2019 |
| 3/26/18 | Cowboys | • Cameron Fleming | signed unrestricted free agent to a 1-year, $2.5M contract |
| 3/26/18 | Cowboys | • Marcus Martin | signed unrestricted free agent to a 1-year, $880K contract |
(information courtesy prosportstransactions.com)
There was nothing wrong with these signings, of course. A few of them played decent roles with the team last year. As you can see, though, they didn’t really rock the NFL world.
How about March 2017?
| 3/10/17 | Cowboys | • Nolan Carroll | signed unrestricted free agent to a 3-year, $10M contract through 2019 |
| 3/10/17 | Cowboys | • Stephen Paea | signed unrestricted free agent to a 1-year, $2M contract |
| 3/14/17 | Cowboys | • Damontre Moore | signed unrestricted free agent to a 2-year, $1.65M contract through 2018 |
| 3/24/17 | Cowboys | • Byron Bell | signed unrestricted free agent to a 1-year, $2M contract |
Nope.
March 2016?
| 3/10/16 | Cowboys | • Cedric Thornton | signed unrestricted free agent to a 4-year contract |
| 3/22/16 | Cowboys | • Alfred Morris | signed unrestricted free agent to a 2-year contract through 2017 |
| 3/22/16 | Cowboys | • Benson Mayowa | signed restricted free agent to a 3-year contract through 2018 (Raiders declined to match offer sheet) |
| 3/29/16 | Cowboys | • Joe Looney | signed unrestricted free agent to a 2-year contract through 2017 |
We shall not soon forget the four-year Cedric Thornton deal that lasted 13 games and the three-year offer sheet theft of Benson Mayowa.
Perhaps I could interest you in March 2015’s big free agency swoop?
| 3/13/15 | Cowboys | • Darren McFadden | signed unrestricted free agent to a 2-year contract |
| 3/15/15 | Cowboys | • Andrew Gachkar | signed unrestricted free agent to a 2-year contract |
| 3/18/15 | Cowboys | • Greg Hardy | signed unrestricted free agent to a 1-year contract |
That one-year, $13m deal with Greg Hardy at least got a Bob Costas interview and some unwanted publicity for the organization.
Let’s walk back another year. March 2014:
| 3/12/14 | Cowboys | • Jeremy Mincey | signed unrestricted free agent to a 2-year contract through 2015 |
| 3/12/14 | Cowboys | • Terrell McClain | signed unrestricted free agent to a 3-year contract through 2016 |
| 3/17/14 | Cowboys | • Brandon Weeden | signed free agent to a 2-year contract through 2015 |
| 3/18/14 | Cowboys | • Henry Melton | signed unrestricted free agent to a 1-year contract with 3 option years |
Here we find the Henry Melton offseason. I admit I wanted the Henry Melton experience to really rock the foundation around here; I thought he might be the true 3-technique we had been dreaming of. Aside from 15 tackles in 16 games, it also gave us a bit of a disturbance in a Grapevine night spot. But the Melton run did not last a second season.
March 2013?
| 3/26/13 | Cowboys | • Justin Durant | signed unrestricted free agent to a 2-year contract through 2014 |
March 2012?
| 3/14/12 | Cowboys | • Brandon Carr | signed unrestricted free agent to a 5-year contract through 2016 |
| 3/14/12 | Cowboys | • Kyle Orton | signed unrestricted free agent to a 3-year contract through 2014 |
| 3/14/12 | Cowboys | • Lawrence Vickers | signed unrestricted free agent to a 2-year contract through 2013 |
| 3/14/12 | Cowboys | • Mackenzy Bernadeau | signed unrestricted free agent to a 4-year contract through 2015 |
| 3/15/12 | Cowboys | • Brodney Pool | signed unrestricted free agent to a 1-year contract |
| 3/15/12 | Cowboys | • Dan Connor (a) | signed unrestricted free agent to a 2-year contract through 2013 |
| 3/16/12 | Cowboys | • Nate Livings | signed unrestricted free agent to a 5-year contract through 2016 |
This would certainly qualify as the last big-ticket free agent order. The Cowboys’ addition of young Brandon Carr from Kansas City for a princely sum of $50 million over five years guaranteed him $26.5 million. He would play all five years in Dallas under that deal, although the final year included a bit of a pay cut.
I have nothing to report from March of 2011 and 2010. But we have a couple small traces in March of 2009:
| 3/6/09 | Cowboys | • Igor Olshansky | signed unrestricted free agent to a 4-year contract/$18m |
| 3/10/09 | Cowboys | • Gerald Sensabaugh | signed unrestricted free agent to a 1-year contract/$1.75 |
There you go. That’s a full decade of free agency where we see the Cowboys’ major purchases limited to Brandon Carr in 2012 and Greg Hardy in 2015.
In fairness, it wasn’t always this way.
In 2005, the Cowboys snagged Marco Rivera from Green Bay on a five-year, $20 million deal.
In 2006, they rocked the NFL by signing Terrell Owens to a three-year, $25 million deal (despite Bill Parcells’ protests).
In 2007, they awarded Leonard Davis a huge seven-year, $49 million contract.
Because of big deals for their own players — Tony Romo, Jason Witten, DeMarcus Ware, etc — the Cowboys began to place a premium on keeping their group together, willingly dealing with cap issues and kicking the can of expenditures down the road to make it all fit.
They were able to keep the band together. But when a team spends all of its resources internally, its only way to improve is through the draft. The conveyor belt would keep turning, and they would often put together some decent enough rosters.
But two things have eluded them ever since. Free agency participation to find those final big pieces (which often are a mirage) and postseason success. Whether these two items are tied together so closely is open for debate, of course. But if you cover this team for a living, you seldom have big news in March like so many other franchises seem to get every year.
They still have a few weeks left, but the clock is ticking.
