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By Bob Sturm 5m ago
Imagine, for the purposes of this exercise, an alternate universe. In this reality, the Dallas Cowboys actually beat a big contract to the market. They didn’t drag their feet until the player had dug in and become annoyed. They didn’t hem and haw until the player threatened to delay surgery. They got Dak Prescott’s deal done back 13 months ago when they knew that he was the QB of their future. Or perhaps they simply got Amari Cooper’s deal done after trading a first-round pick for him, making their long-term intentions very clear.
In this hypothetical scenario, perhaps everyone feels different about the impending exit of Byron Jones. In other words, if Byron Jones was the Cowboys’ biggest free agent in the spring of 2020 — and not their third-biggest — then surely, there would be greater concern the Cowboys were about to spend the next several years chasing a player they already had.
It is important to be fair here and to state that on this day, February 24th, we are now a few days from knowing more about the Cowboys’ plans. On February 27th, a date that could be further manipulated with further CBA talks between the league and the player’s association, teams will be authorized to begin placing tags on various players to designate them as either a franchise player or a transition player. (Or perhaps both!)
In other words, we don’t know what the Cowboys plan to do. Partly because they don’t. The fact that the Cowboys have the most complicated offseason of any team in the NFL has been further entangled by these last-minute labor talks. All moving pieces affect the others, of course, but if you still are uncertain of the overall ground rules for the entire league moving forward, how can you make informed decisions when it is believed you have three of the nine biggest free agents in the marketplace and deadlines loom?
I just referenced Sheil Kapadia’s fine piece from a few weeks ago when he examined this free agent field. This is one list you wouldn’t mind if your team was not a big player in, but of course, we know that is not an issue in Dallas. The Cowboys are all over this list in 2020, and here are their spots in the top nine:
1. Dak Prescott, QB, Cowboys (27)
One way or another, Prescott is expected to be back with the Cowboys. He’s coming off a season in which he completed 65.1% of his passes, averaged 8.2 YPA and threw 30 touchdowns to 11 interceptions. Prescott ranked sixth in adjusted net yards per attempt (ANY/A) and fourth in QBR. He’s never missed a game due to injury. Given his age, track record and position, Prescott should be looking to become one of the highest-paid players in the NFL. If the Cowboys don’t want to pay that hefty price, they can use the franchise tag to keep him in Dallas for at least one more year.
2. Drew Brees, QB, Saints (41)
3. Tom Brady, QB, Patriots (43)
4. Philip Rivers, QB, Chargers (38)
5. Amari Cooper, WR, Cowboys (26)
He’s been fantastic since joining the Cowboys during the 2018 season. Last year, Cooper finished eighth in the NFL with 1,189 receiving yards. Michael Thomas got a new deal from the Saints in July that pays him $19.25 million per year. Julio Jones got a new deal from the Falcons in September that pays him $22 million per year. Cooper will likely be seeking a deal in the $20 million per year range, and he has leverage, given how well he’s played, how young he is and the fact that the Cowboys gave up a first-round pick to land him. The franchise or transition tag also could be an option.
6. Chris Jones, DT, Chiefs (26)
7. Yannick Ngakoue, EDGE, Jaguars (25)
8. Jadeveon Clowney, DE, Seahawks (27)
9. Byron Jones, CB, Cowboys (27)
He played mostly right corner for the Cowboys last season but has experience previously playing safety and can line up in different spots. Jones is an elite athlete and effective in both man and zone. He can match up with outside receivers and can also take on dynamic tight ends. It would be no surprise to see Jones become the highest-paid corner in the NFL at $16 million or $17 million per season. The Cowboys could use the franchise or transition tag on Jones, but he seems well behind Prescott and Cooper on their priority list.
That is pretty crazy. Also crazy, of course, is the premise that even though you can normally only tag one player — and despite the Cowboys having an extra tag this season (CBA pending) — they still won’t have any way to keep one of these three players off the market in three weeks. And the league has noticed. Because almost nobody expects a chance at Dak Prescott in free agency. Very few think Amari Cooper will ever get there, either. Instead, the one player that just about the entire league believes the Cowboys will have no chance to keep away from the bidding wars will be Byron Jones.
Jones is a complicated study, to say the least. In fact, you would not need to dig too deeply in my own writing to find me drawing a line on the value of Byron Jones and generally suggesting he is a very good cornerback, but certainly not the type you would be willing to make the highest-paid corner in the NFL. Could I see Byron as a very well-compensated corner? Yes. Does he deserve a top-10 contract? Sure. But, heading to the top of the list requires a few things and one of them, of course, is getting to free agency. That act alone has made many a rich man in this league, and when the bottom feeders with endless amounts of cap room try to show their fan base that they are competing hard, that is when top-10 guys get paid as if they are the best at their position. Exhibit A on this list would be the Jets in the spring of 2018 splashing five years and $72.5 million on Trumaine Johnson to steal him from the Rams. There had never been a moment where anyone thought Trumaine Johnson was the best corner in football. Well, that didn’t matter: The Jets had room and they were willing to spend it on Johnson, and so he quickly became the best-compensated corner in the NFL. Zero All-Pro teams and zero Pro Bowls later, Johnson was at the top of the salary scale. In other words, if you don’t want to overpay, you cannot let your guys get to free agency.
This isn’t an evaluation of the Jets’ silly decision and the 23 months of regret since then. Rather, it is a discussion about whether the Cowboys and their fans will live to regret the year they were so distracted with the daily Dak Prescott and Amari Cooper discussions that they actually left the door unlatched as their best corner since peak Terence Newman snuck out into the wild.
There are so many things to consider. Let’s try to work through most of them.
BYRON JONES IS AN EXCELLENT PLAYER
First off, by almost all advanced metrics, Byron Jones is among the best cornerbacks in the game. This is difficult to define, but when I am asked what makes a good corner, I’ll always consider taking an opponent out of the game as a key factor. He can hold his own against elite receivers and quarterbacks and refuses to be exposed. Since the Cowboys moved him to cornerback full-time entering the 2018 season, the list of problematic plays has been extremely short, and we’ve seen almost no cases of being exposed for an entire game by any receiver. Jones has absolutely stood tall in almost every test he has been given. Considering some of the freaks he has had to face over the years, that is very impressive.
He is rarely targeted and gives up very few big days. In two full seasons at corner, he has been charged with less than 1,000 yards receiving and opponents have completed less than 56 percent of passes. That is out-of-this-world good on both counts. Teams don’t throw at him, and when they do, they don’t find much at all. There were a few big plays at the end of 2018, but you would be hard-pressed to make much of a list in 2019. After Week 2, there wasn’t a game over 45 yards against Jones.
He has been big, physical, imposing and, of course, athletic enough to make up ground in a pinch. You will have a hard time finding a player with his traits on the market. And if that player is in the draft, the only place you can find him in is Round 1. If you let Byron Jones go in March only to draft someone you hope could eventually be Byron Jones in April, how are you getting better?
BYRON JONES IS ALWAYS HEALTHY
This one is important, too. He has played in 79 of 80 regular-season games over his five seasons and three out of three in the playoffs. The one game he missed was the finale this season in Week 17 when the Cowboys were out of the mix and his ankle kept him out. I dare say he has toughed his way through a number of situations and about 5,000 snaps already. He has elite athleticism and has missed one game out of 83. Enough said.
Oh, look. The elephant in the room.
You ready?
(deep breaths)
Let’s do it.
(pause)
BYRON JONES HAS NO INTERCEPTIONS SINCE 2017
I don’t want to make light of this because I highly prefer my defensive backs get interceptions if the alternative is that they do not get them. Hopefully, you know my eternal stance on the importance of takeaways and their correlation with winning in the NFL.
The fact that Jones, in five years, has only two more career interceptions than Travis Frederick is not something you will put on his Hall of Fame bust, but I would at least like to entertain a few thoughts here.
One, despite the common beliefs on #CowboysTwitter (a place where I am starting to wonder if people actually watch football anymore), the object of a cornerback is not to get interceptions but rather to stop the offense. Takeaways are one way to do it, although far less frequent than just stopping offenses from successful plays. If you look at it from that standpoint, Byron Jones is magnificent at stopping offenses from taking advantage of him. He is not great at taking the ball away. Should he have a few more picks? Sure. I can concede that. But would you feel way differently if he had one or two interceptions per season? Because in 1,000 plays, if you are telling me a different result on two plays would impact your analysis of his performance, I would ask you to dig way deeper.
He has played on a defense that has struggled to create turnovers for years. Is this issue with the player or the scheme? He has played in a secondary that plays a ton of conservative zones. He has played in a scheme that wishes to bend without breaking. I also think it is worth considering that the Cowboys have promised to change the way they play defense in 2020 long before they hired Mike McCarthy. They were done with the Rod Marinelli/Kris Richard scheme by early December and the new ways will be to play with more of an edge, less predictability and simplicity in their schemes, and hopefully more attack to yield more big defensive plays. To do that, they are going to need a cornerback who looks a lot like Byron Jones.
Let me show you another thing to make sure we are aware of how small interceptions are becoming in a sport where passing is the principal method of moving the ball:
NFL INTERCEPTION RATES, 1999-2019
Nearly every season, quarterbacks get better at not risking the ball in traffic (Jameis Winston excepted). This means interceptions still happen, but they are becoming incredibly uncommon. In the last 20 years, they have fallen substantially. It seems more and more that interceptions are happening more from a steady pass rush and from safeties diving in to make aggressive breaks on the ball. Against teams that play a lot of zones (Dallas), the corners come up with fewer picks. In Dallas, the entire secondary has hardly found any interceptions in recent years. Are they all incompetent, or are they playing the style they are asked to play?
And if that style is changing, are they looking for a player like Byron Jones?
He is 27, he is durable, he is excellent in coverage, he is a consummate professional on and off the field, and he knows his way around DFW.
It is highly possible Jones’ price tag means the only way they keep him is with a tag, and it is very likely they have already waited too long. It is also possible the new administration is thinking differently than we are right now.
Most of the NFL expects Byron Jones will be one of the few top free agents to change locations this upcoming month. It sure seems odd that everyone appears fine with that. Because all indications are that the Cowboys will likely soon regret not doing more to keep him when they had the chance.
Imagine, for the purposes of this exercise, an alternate universe. In this reality, the Dallas Cowboys actually beat a big contract to the market. They didn’t drag their feet until the player had dug in and become annoyed. They didn’t hem and haw until the player threatened to delay surgery. They got Dak Prescott’s deal done back 13 months ago when they knew that he was the QB of their future. Or perhaps they simply got Amari Cooper’s deal done after trading a first-round pick for him, making their long-term intentions very clear.
In this hypothetical scenario, perhaps everyone feels different about the impending exit of Byron Jones. In other words, if Byron Jones was the Cowboys’ biggest free agent in the spring of 2020 — and not their third-biggest — then surely, there would be greater concern the Cowboys were about to spend the next several years chasing a player they already had.
It is important to be fair here and to state that on this day, February 24th, we are now a few days from knowing more about the Cowboys’ plans. On February 27th, a date that could be further manipulated with further CBA talks between the league and the player’s association, teams will be authorized to begin placing tags on various players to designate them as either a franchise player or a transition player. (Or perhaps both!)
In other words, we don’t know what the Cowboys plan to do. Partly because they don’t. The fact that the Cowboys have the most complicated offseason of any team in the NFL has been further entangled by these last-minute labor talks. All moving pieces affect the others, of course, but if you still are uncertain of the overall ground rules for the entire league moving forward, how can you make informed decisions when it is believed you have three of the nine biggest free agents in the marketplace and deadlines loom?
I just referenced Sheil Kapadia’s fine piece from a few weeks ago when he examined this free agent field. This is one list you wouldn’t mind if your team was not a big player in, but of course, we know that is not an issue in Dallas. The Cowboys are all over this list in 2020, and here are their spots in the top nine:
1. Dak Prescott, QB, Cowboys (27)
One way or another, Prescott is expected to be back with the Cowboys. He’s coming off a season in which he completed 65.1% of his passes, averaged 8.2 YPA and threw 30 touchdowns to 11 interceptions. Prescott ranked sixth in adjusted net yards per attempt (ANY/A) and fourth in QBR. He’s never missed a game due to injury. Given his age, track record and position, Prescott should be looking to become one of the highest-paid players in the NFL. If the Cowboys don’t want to pay that hefty price, they can use the franchise tag to keep him in Dallas for at least one more year.
2. Drew Brees, QB, Saints (41)
3. Tom Brady, QB, Patriots (43)
4. Philip Rivers, QB, Chargers (38)
5. Amari Cooper, WR, Cowboys (26)
He’s been fantastic since joining the Cowboys during the 2018 season. Last year, Cooper finished eighth in the NFL with 1,189 receiving yards. Michael Thomas got a new deal from the Saints in July that pays him $19.25 million per year. Julio Jones got a new deal from the Falcons in September that pays him $22 million per year. Cooper will likely be seeking a deal in the $20 million per year range, and he has leverage, given how well he’s played, how young he is and the fact that the Cowboys gave up a first-round pick to land him. The franchise or transition tag also could be an option.
6. Chris Jones, DT, Chiefs (26)
7. Yannick Ngakoue, EDGE, Jaguars (25)
8. Jadeveon Clowney, DE, Seahawks (27)
9. Byron Jones, CB, Cowboys (27)
He played mostly right corner for the Cowboys last season but has experience previously playing safety and can line up in different spots. Jones is an elite athlete and effective in both man and zone. He can match up with outside receivers and can also take on dynamic tight ends. It would be no surprise to see Jones become the highest-paid corner in the NFL at $16 million or $17 million per season. The Cowboys could use the franchise or transition tag on Jones, but he seems well behind Prescott and Cooper on their priority list.
That is pretty crazy. Also crazy, of course, is the premise that even though you can normally only tag one player — and despite the Cowboys having an extra tag this season (CBA pending) — they still won’t have any way to keep one of these three players off the market in three weeks. And the league has noticed. Because almost nobody expects a chance at Dak Prescott in free agency. Very few think Amari Cooper will ever get there, either. Instead, the one player that just about the entire league believes the Cowboys will have no chance to keep away from the bidding wars will be Byron Jones.
Jones is a complicated study, to say the least. In fact, you would not need to dig too deeply in my own writing to find me drawing a line on the value of Byron Jones and generally suggesting he is a very good cornerback, but certainly not the type you would be willing to make the highest-paid corner in the NFL. Could I see Byron as a very well-compensated corner? Yes. Does he deserve a top-10 contract? Sure. But, heading to the top of the list requires a few things and one of them, of course, is getting to free agency. That act alone has made many a rich man in this league, and when the bottom feeders with endless amounts of cap room try to show their fan base that they are competing hard, that is when top-10 guys get paid as if they are the best at their position. Exhibit A on this list would be the Jets in the spring of 2018 splashing five years and $72.5 million on Trumaine Johnson to steal him from the Rams. There had never been a moment where anyone thought Trumaine Johnson was the best corner in football. Well, that didn’t matter: The Jets had room and they were willing to spend it on Johnson, and so he quickly became the best-compensated corner in the NFL. Zero All-Pro teams and zero Pro Bowls later, Johnson was at the top of the salary scale. In other words, if you don’t want to overpay, you cannot let your guys get to free agency.
This isn’t an evaluation of the Jets’ silly decision and the 23 months of regret since then. Rather, it is a discussion about whether the Cowboys and their fans will live to regret the year they were so distracted with the daily Dak Prescott and Amari Cooper discussions that they actually left the door unlatched as their best corner since peak Terence Newman snuck out into the wild.
There are so many things to consider. Let’s try to work through most of them.
BYRON JONES IS AN EXCELLENT PLAYER
First off, by almost all advanced metrics, Byron Jones is among the best cornerbacks in the game. This is difficult to define, but when I am asked what makes a good corner, I’ll always consider taking an opponent out of the game as a key factor. He can hold his own against elite receivers and quarterbacks and refuses to be exposed. Since the Cowboys moved him to cornerback full-time entering the 2018 season, the list of problematic plays has been extremely short, and we’ve seen almost no cases of being exposed for an entire game by any receiver. Jones has absolutely stood tall in almost every test he has been given. Considering some of the freaks he has had to face over the years, that is very impressive.
He is rarely targeted and gives up very few big days. In two full seasons at corner, he has been charged with less than 1,000 yards receiving and opponents have completed less than 56 percent of passes. That is out-of-this-world good on both counts. Teams don’t throw at him, and when they do, they don’t find much at all. There were a few big plays at the end of 2018, but you would be hard-pressed to make much of a list in 2019. After Week 2, there wasn’t a game over 45 yards against Jones.
He has been big, physical, imposing and, of course, athletic enough to make up ground in a pinch. You will have a hard time finding a player with his traits on the market. And if that player is in the draft, the only place you can find him in is Round 1. If you let Byron Jones go in March only to draft someone you hope could eventually be Byron Jones in April, how are you getting better?
BYRON JONES IS ALWAYS HEALTHY
This one is important, too. He has played in 79 of 80 regular-season games over his five seasons and three out of three in the playoffs. The one game he missed was the finale this season in Week 17 when the Cowboys were out of the mix and his ankle kept him out. I dare say he has toughed his way through a number of situations and about 5,000 snaps already. He has elite athleticism and has missed one game out of 83. Enough said.
Oh, look. The elephant in the room.
You ready?
(deep breaths)
Let’s do it.
(pause)
BYRON JONES HAS NO INTERCEPTIONS SINCE 2017
I don’t want to make light of this because I highly prefer my defensive backs get interceptions if the alternative is that they do not get them. Hopefully, you know my eternal stance on the importance of takeaways and their correlation with winning in the NFL.
The fact that Jones, in five years, has only two more career interceptions than Travis Frederick is not something you will put on his Hall of Fame bust, but I would at least like to entertain a few thoughts here.
One, despite the common beliefs on #CowboysTwitter (a place where I am starting to wonder if people actually watch football anymore), the object of a cornerback is not to get interceptions but rather to stop the offense. Takeaways are one way to do it, although far less frequent than just stopping offenses from successful plays. If you look at it from that standpoint, Byron Jones is magnificent at stopping offenses from taking advantage of him. He is not great at taking the ball away. Should he have a few more picks? Sure. I can concede that. But would you feel way differently if he had one or two interceptions per season? Because in 1,000 plays, if you are telling me a different result on two plays would impact your analysis of his performance, I would ask you to dig way deeper.
He has played on a defense that has struggled to create turnovers for years. Is this issue with the player or the scheme? He has played in a secondary that plays a ton of conservative zones. He has played in a scheme that wishes to bend without breaking. I also think it is worth considering that the Cowboys have promised to change the way they play defense in 2020 long before they hired Mike McCarthy. They were done with the Rod Marinelli/Kris Richard scheme by early December and the new ways will be to play with more of an edge, less predictability and simplicity in their schemes, and hopefully more attack to yield more big defensive plays. To do that, they are going to need a cornerback who looks a lot like Byron Jones.
Let me show you another thing to make sure we are aware of how small interceptions are becoming in a sport where passing is the principal method of moving the ball:
NFL INTERCEPTION RATES, 1999-2019
Nearly every season, quarterbacks get better at not risking the ball in traffic (Jameis Winston excepted). This means interceptions still happen, but they are becoming incredibly uncommon. In the last 20 years, they have fallen substantially. It seems more and more that interceptions are happening more from a steady pass rush and from safeties diving in to make aggressive breaks on the ball. Against teams that play a lot of zones (Dallas), the corners come up with fewer picks. In Dallas, the entire secondary has hardly found any interceptions in recent years. Are they all incompetent, or are they playing the style they are asked to play?
And if that style is changing, are they looking for a player like Byron Jones?
He is 27, he is durable, he is excellent in coverage, he is a consummate professional on and off the field, and he knows his way around DFW.
It is highly possible Jones’ price tag means the only way they keep him is with a tag, and it is very likely they have already waited too long. It is also possible the new administration is thinking differently than we are right now.
Most of the NFL expects Byron Jones will be one of the few top free agents to change locations this upcoming month. It sure seems odd that everyone appears fine with that. Because all indications are that the Cowboys will likely soon regret not doing more to keep him when they had the chance.
