Dallas Cowboys Free Agents 2015, Who Do you Keep?

[Cotton]

Well of course. I mean the guy could tear his ACL tomorrow and I'd say hell no to giving him that extension. If he continues on his current trajectory I don't know how you wouldn't offer him that extension. Right now the guy is on pace for 8 sacks but given how he has gotten better as the year has gone on I could see him easily surpassing that number.

I meant I would like to see him take more of the workload. He is only playing about 50% of the snaps now. I would like to see that number go up before I commit elite money to him.

Now, you post your lists so we can argue about something else.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

I don't much see the point of listing restricted free agents. They are easy to keep but I guess here is my list:

Must Keep
Dez Bryant
Rolando McClain
Ron Leary
Henry Melton
Murray (I actually think 5 must keeps is a lot)

Valuable
Sterling Moore
Doug Free (We have to keep one of these two RTs in my opinion and my preference is for Free but I'm not sure I get too worked up about which one we keep)
Justin Durant
Jeremy Parnell
Anthony Spencer (He looks valuable as a rotational guy but probably no longer as a starter in this league)

 

[Cotton]

I don't much see the point of listing restricted free agents. They are easy to keep but I guess here is my list:

Must Keep
Dez Bryant
Rolando McClain
Ron Leary
Henry Melton
Murray (I actually think 5 must keeps is a lot)

Valuable
Sterling Moore
Doug Free (We have to keep one of these two RTs in my opinion and my preference is for Free but I'm not sure I get too worked up about which one we keep)
Justin Durant
Jeremy Parnell
Anthony Spencer (He looks valuable as a rotational guy but probably no longer as a starter in this league)

I think 5 must keeps is too many as well. And I also had Murray as my bubble player in this situation, so I guess I have nothing to argue about your list.

 

[Jiggyfly]

Leary is a restricted free agent. Put a first round tender on him and don't look back. That's an easy one.

You can't just look at it for one year I am projecting out over the next 4-5 and how you build this team going forward.

Now the Leary knee thing gives me pause but as it stands now I take Leary long term over Melton.

 

[boozeman]

The following is a list of all notable Cowboys FA's next year, make a list of your top 5 must keep and your next 5 that you consider valuable.

This a surprisingly long list of people, I have highlighted my must keeps.

Melton is not a FA but a decision needs to made so include him.

PLAYER - UFA/RFA - AGE
Henry Melton-28
Dez Bryant - UFA - 25
Rolando McClain - UFA - 25
DeMarco Murray - UFA - 26
Bruce Carter - UFA - 26
Justin Durant - UFA - 29
Cole Beasley - RFA - 25
Doug Free - UFA - 30
Jeremy Parnell - UFA - 28
Anthony Spencer - UFA - 30
George Selvie - UFA - 27
Dwayne Harris - UFA - 27
Lance Dunbar - RFA - 24
Sterling Moore - UFA 24
Nick Hayden
Chris Jones
Tyler Clutts
Josh Brent
C.J. Spillman
Darrion Weems
Jack Crawford
Ron Leary RFA
Cameron Lawrence
Donald Hawkins
Lavar Edwards
Tony Hills
David Little

Agree with most of these.

Free catches shit, but he's clearly better than Parnell IMO. Moore was a favorite of mine but he's getting picked on a lot recently and might be a little less than how he played earlier in the year. Leary is an RFA, so he's not going anywhere.

Murray is the biggest issue, and if he kills it in the stretch run like he did in the early part of the season, he becomes a must as well. McClain has been a surprise, but he is not reliable.

These other guys on here, not too concerned with.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

You can't just look at it for one year I am projecting out over the next 4-5 and how you build this team going forward.

Now the Leary knee thing gives me pause but as it stands now I take Leary long term over Melton.

Well and I kept Leary on my keeper list regardless. I think one year is a guarantee that he returns. If his knee doesn't start to show itself as a serious problem at that point I may start to feel comfortable that it won't be the career problem everyone feared.

 

[Jiggyfly]

I don't much see the point of listing restricted free agents. They are easy to keep but I guess here is my list:

Must Keep
Dez Bryant
Rolando McClain
Ron Leary
Henry Melton
Murray (I actually think 5 must keeps is a lot)

Valuable
Sterling Moore
Doug Free (We have to keep one of these two RTs in my opinion and my preference is for Free but I'm not sure I get too worked up about which one we keep)
Justin Durant
Jeremy Parnell
Anthony Spencer (He looks valuable as a rotational guy but probably no longer as a starter in this league)

5 might be a lot of must keeps it was just an arbitrary number.

I also agree with you about the RT situation I could live with either but prefer to keep Free for continuity.

 

[Simpleton]

Dez is clearly the number 1 priority, aside from him, my main concern is keeping the OL together since it seems we could have something special there and it should be the foundation of the team for the foreseeable future.

Could we replace Free or Leary?

Probably, and the OL was still pretty solid in limited time without them this year, but this is a group that has the potential to carry an entire team and I want to keep it together as much as possible. I don't think Free will command anything too crazy considering his age and inconsistency over the years, and Leary is an RFA so I'm not particularly concerned about re-signing him right now.

After that I have Murray and McClain, I shouldn't really have to explain those and I think we should be able to get a decent deal with McClain considering his circumstances and that his momentum has slowed a bit with the injuries.

So I guess my 5 would be Dez, Free, Leary, Murray and McClain, although if we take out Leary because he's a RFA I'd put Melton in there.

My only concern with Melton right now is of course the money and the fact that he's only playing about 30 snaps a game, but if we can restructure and bring his cap hit down next year I'd have him after Dez and Free.

Aside from those 6 there is a pretty steep drop off in terms of how important I think our other guys are, but I'd be interested in bringing back Durant (should be cheap and he's a very nice utility LB), Harris, Moore and I guess the various DL in Hayden, Spencer and Selvie. The only reason I'd be interested in bringing back any of those DL is because they should be very cheap, they know the system and provide great depth.

 

[Plan9Misfit]

A lot of the guys aren't high dollar players, so we should be able to re-sign most of them with relative ease.

Henry Melton
Dez Bryant
Rolando McClain
DeMarco Murray - Only if he can be signed to a reasonable deal
Bruce Carter
Justin Durant
Doug Free
Sterling Moore
Tyler Clutts
Ron Leary

 

[Deuce]

I would be so happy to move on from Chris Jones.

 

[Cotton]

I would be so happy to move on from Chris Jones.

No doubt. And, really, I'm just about there with Harris, as well.

 

[NoDak]

Free catches shit, but he's clearly better than Parnell IMO.

Xwalker called and said you can kiss his ass. Clearly, you haven't been paying attention to when he breaks down the all22 and tells us how awesome Parnell is.

 

[Carp]

I would be so happy to move on from Chris Jones.

He has value as a holder...not saying someone else could not do it, but it should be in the thought process.

 

[Texas Ace]

If it came down to it I keep Leary over Melton.

But that could change if Melton takes it up a notch.

No way.

Melton is coming on strong and is playing very well.

If he keeps it or even improves, how can you not keep the high caliber DT when you have a D-line in dire need of improvement?

I like Leary, but that O-line is good without him and would be much easier to replace than Melton.

 

[Texas Ace]

I would be so happy to move on from Chris Jones.

Agreed.

He's been nothing but an average punter since he took over the job.

Good riddance.

 

[Cowboysrock55]

He has value as a holder...not saying someone else could not do it, but it should be in the thought process.

In terms of holding he is flawless and it's one of those facets of special teams that people don't always recognize. Our snaps and holds on field goal kicks are about as perfect as you can get. I want Chris Jones replaced but it's definitely something that should be left to the offseason where we can also figure out the holding situation with a perfect replacement.

As a punter Jones sucks. I mean getting off an average punt from him seems like a win most of the time. Makes me envious of the teams with a punter that can basically flip the entire field on the opposing team.

 

[NoDak]

As a punter Jones sucks. I mean getting off an average punt from him seems like a win most of the time. Makes me envious of the teams with a punter that can basically flip the entire field on the opposing team.

Agreed. Makes me miss Matt McBriar.

 

[Deuce]

Draft JJ Worton in April and it solves a lot of issues.

He returns punts, he handles the slot WR duties to move the chains and he's the team holder for FG and PAT's.

Cut Jones, Beasley and Harris loose.

 

[Jiggyfly]

No way.

Melton is coming on strong and is playing very well.

If he keeps it or even improves, how can you not keep the high caliber DT when you have a D-line in dire need of improvement?

I like Leary, but that O-line is good without him and would be much easier to replace than Melton.

Melton can already be replaced with Crawford, he is younger and cheaper I think people are overly hyping his sack numbers.

Now if Melton continues to improve he can separate but for production so far this season Crawford has had the most impact.

Melton has 11 total tackles to 20 for Crawford.

As for Leary I think the dropoff from him to Berny is much greater than Melton to Crawford and he will be much cheaper over the next 3 years which is why I say I would pick him.

I also think Leary is very underrated I think his play has been on par with Martin but Martin has the pedigree which gets him the pub.

And like I said before I would be sniffing around Suh before giving Melton 9 million per Suh can't be a whole lot more expensive, i'm thinking 10 or 11 tops.