Archer: Cowboys will play it close to vest in free agency

Cotton

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Cowboys will play it close to vest in free agency

3:58 PM ET
Todd Archer
ESPN Staff Writer

INDIANAPOLIS – The Dallas Cowboys will have a modest amount of room under the salary cap to go after free agents. However, they will have the ability to create a ton of room, if necessary, by simply restructuring some contracts.

When free agency begins March 9, there could be about $1 billion in salary-cap room league-wide.

“I’m not a big fan of free agency; I’ll be the first to admit it,” executive vice president Stephen Jones said. “Unfortunately, good players get paid like they’re great players, average players get paid like they’re good players and it’s a domino effect. It’s not a great way to put your team together.”

The last time the Cowboys jumped into the deep end of the free-agent pool was in 2012, when they signed Brandon Carr to a five-year, $50 million deal. Carr is iffy at being on the roster for the final year of his contract as he has not intercepted a pass in a game since 2013.

Jones would rather pick and choose his spots in free agency in order to keep costs – and risk – down. Last year’s big free agent signing with Greg Hardy, who signed a one-year deal without any guaranteed money. He ended up earning about $8.8 million, with most of it coming in the form of per-game roster bonuses.

The Cowboys will have roughly $13-15 million of spending room, depending where the NFL settles the cap. That’s more than enough to fill holes, but pales in comparison to the room the Jacksonville Jaguars ($78 million), Oakland Raiders ($74 million), Chicago Bears ($60 million) and New York Giants ($58 million) will have.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“To me, if you got that kind of room, and I’m not being critical of anybody, if you got that kind of cap room, to me, it means you haven’t drafted well because you haven’t kept your own players, or you don’t have a quarterback, which is painful for any team,” Jones said. “If you've got a great quarterback, there goes a big chunk of your cap room right off the top. You’d like to hope that you’re drafting well and you’re keeping your own players.”

The Cowboys have signed draft picks such as Sean Lee, Dez Bryant, Tyron Smith and Tyrone Crawford to sizable extensions. Tony Romo has a salary-cap figure of nearly $21 million.

There is a difference between being active and spending big in free agency. The Cowboys want to spend wisely to fill holes on their roster before the draft. That should allow them to draft better.

“I think sometimes there are necessities that you need to jump out and do some things,” Jones said. “Hopefully you’re not really needing to have something that you’re paying a good player like he’s a great player. We’ve done it before. It doesn’t mean we won’t do it ever again, but you try not to. Obviously you’d like to build your team through the draft and keep your players that hopefully you drafted well and keep those type of players so we’re not out there in free agency.”

The Cowboys have 16 unrestricted free agents, including Hardy. Jones said they will use their time in Indianapolis at the scouting combine to see if they can re-sign the guys they want.

With so much cap room available, re-signing players this close to the opening of the market will be difficult. Jones, however, doesn’t see it as an impossible task.

“Now, at the end of the day, it only takes one other team to want one that’s willing to pay them a lot more than we want to pay them, and then you got to look at letting a guy go,” Jones said. “But no, we’re constantly working. We’ve been working with some of our players that we’re trying to sign.”
 

dallen

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When is the last time we signed a big name free agent and it really worked out? I guess maybe you could say TO or Leonard Davis depending on how far you want to stretch the meaning of either working out or big name. I think you have to go all the way back to Deion
 

Cowboysrock55

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The NFL teams do such a good job keeping their elite players by manipulating the cap and using the franchise tag that there just aren't a lot of great big names out there any more.
 

Smitty

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You have to identify potential steals and strike while the iron is hot. This year's RB class is an example... supply might outweigh demand, and then you have the added bonus of knowing that you are likely to get max production from the player because of your investment in the OL. Given these circumstances you can probably get a player who out produces his contract, and if you get the right one, he can be a star here on a very affordable deal.

We could do the same thing at secondary if we were smart. An investment of drafting high caliber defensive lineman could let us constantly be funneling in mid level corners who all over perform their pay grade. We do that side of the ball backwards, though. Usually.
 

Simpleton

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The key is not to be aggressive signing guys who will get mega deals (if they even hit the market) like Muhammad Wilkerson, Josh Norman or Alshon Jeffrey. The key is to identify guys who can play a role for you, who won't be overly expensive, and attempt to lock them up on a reasonable contract in the first week or two while mostly everybody else is flailing around.

Ahtyba Rubin is a perfect example. He's been solid against the run most of his career, he'll give you a sack or two a year, he's 30, old enough to where most teams won't pay him much attention early but young enough to where he can still be a good player for at least another 2-3 years, played in a similar defense in Seattle and I'm sure he can be had for cheap. He could come in and probably be one of our best run-stuffing DT's while giving you a solid 30 or so snaps a game. You target a guy like that, make him a priority in the first week or two and try to lock him up to something very reasonable like 2 years, 6 million and suddenly you've bolstered your depth and patched up a spot that could use some upgrading for next to nothing.
 

townsend

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You have to identify potential steals and strike while the iron is hot. This year's RB class is an example... supply might outweigh demand, and then you have the added bonus of knowing that you are likely to get max production from the player because of your investment in the OL. Given these circumstances you can probably get a player who out produces his contract, and if you get the right one, he can be a star here on a very affordable deal.

We could do the same thing at secondary if we were smart. An investment of drafting high caliber defensive lineman could let us constantly be funneling in mid level corners who all over perform their pay grade. We do that side of the ball backwards, though. Usually.
Here's what I don't get, D line is one place where we devoted the most resources last year, but we had significantly worse DB play than in 2014 when our d line was shit. So I don't know if there's as strong a correlation as you think. elite DB play has been a trademark of most championship defenses in the past decade. Packers, Ravens, Seahawks, Pats, Broncos all had top tier DBs.
 

DCUDoomsday

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elite DB play has been a trademark of most championship defenses in the past decade. Packers, Ravens, Seahawks, Pats, Broncos all had top tier DBs.
But, all of those also had a quality, consistent pass rush.

Even our putrid Legion of Boobs secondary could be made to look decent, if we had even some semblance of a consistent pass rush.
 

Cowboysrock55

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Here's what I don't get, D line is one place where we devoted the most resources last year, but we had significantly worse DB play than in 2014 when our d line was shit. So I don't know if there's as strong a correlation as you think. elite DB play has been a trademark of most championship defenses in the past decade. Packers, Ravens, Seahawks, Pats, Broncos all had top tier DBs.
I don't know if our DB play was really that much worse in 2015 then in 2014. I think we lost Scandrick which obviously hurt. And we lost an elite offense (We went from a top offense to a putrid bad one). Even with those factors our defense was basically the same in 2015 as it was in 2014 statistically. If we would have had the 2014 offense last year I think you would be saying that the 2015 defense looked much better.

With all of that being said, this notion that you can just get a pass rush and everything else will be fine is silly. You have to be able to cover people. As much as I give schmitty shit, the pass rush is ultimately more important then your DBs. So I'd fix the pass rush first and then finish the defense off by getting better DBs. It's a process. We clearly aren't anywhere close to having a defense like the Broncos, but that isn't done over night.
 

townsend

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But, all of those also had a quality, consistent pass rush.

Even our putrid Legion of Boobs secondary could be made to look decent, if we had even some semblance of a consistent pass rush.
We've had some kind of pass rush for several years. Most of the years Ware was racking up all timer sack numbers our secondary was nullifying those sacks by allowing long bombs on 3rd and a million.
 

Smitty

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What's not to get? Hardy underperformed and Gregory was a rookie no show, those were the two big pass rush additions and they didn't give the impact needed. Add in losing our best DB and it makes sense.
 

Smitty

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We've had some kind of pass rush for several years. Most of the years Ware was racking up all timer sack numbers our secondary was nullifying those sacks by allowing long bombs on 3rd and a million.
The couple years we actually had two sack threats in Ware and Spencer I remember our D being halfway decent.
 

Chocolate Lab

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ravidubey

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Yep. Second in the entire NFL in scoring defense.
That defense was not stout nor did it cause turnovers.

The between the 20's running game helped out the defensive stats.

The OL was exposed in the playoffs and that was the end of it.
 

townsend

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The couple years we actually had two sack threats in Ware and Spencer I remember our D being halfway decent.
From 2010 to 2013 it was not decent, both Ware and Spencer were pretty good during most of that stretch, but our defensive backfield was porous.
 

Jiggyfly

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That defense was not stout nor did it cause turnovers.

The between the 20's running game helped out the defensive stats.

The OL was exposed in the playoffs and that was the end of it.
The between the 20's running game.:lol

How does that explain being 2nd in scoring defense?
 

Jiggyfly

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ball control helps keep the score down, like 2014.
Dallas threw the ball 550 times that year as opposed to 438 rushes.

In 2014 they ran it 30 more times than passing.

The 2009 team gave up 70 3rd down conversions, 2014 86 3rd down conversions.

The 2009 offense had 89 3rd down conversions, 2014 95 3rd down conversions.

The time of possession was about the same.

It was a very good defense using any metric.
 
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