Moore: Cowboys quiet in free agency; why they are OK with status quo

boozeman

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Moore: Cowboys quiet in free agency; why they are OK with status quo



By David Moore , Staff Writer Contact David Moore on Twitter: @DavidMooreDMN


Club officials will tell you the Cowboys fall from grace to the bottom of the NFC standings was driven by more than injuries.


Their actions to open free agency say otherwise.



Dallas has signed seven players since the starting gun sounded Wednesday afternoon. Six of them were on the roster to finish last season. Defensive tackle Cedric Thornton is the only outside addition for a team that finished 4-12.

The Cowboys will add another two or three free agents from other teams in the coming days and weeks. But the early emphasis on keeping their own is telling. It indicates when management and coaches got together to assess what went wrong in 2015, they determined injuries to Tony Romo, Dez Bryant, Orlando Scandrick and Lance Dunbar played a larger role than officials have been willing to concede publicly.

Here are a few more observations to keep in mind as the Cowboys enter the first, full week of free agency.

The Cowboys inquired about what it would take to bring DeMarco Murray back, found the price to be too high and moved on.

Lamar Miller went to Houston. Doug Miller stayed in Tampa Bay. Matt Forte signed with the New York Jets after Chris Ivory went to Jacksonville. The Cowboys chose to save their money to spend at other positions.

There are still a few decent backs on the market to pair with Darren McFadden, but none that really excite the club. Look for the Cowboys to spend a draft pick on this position rather than free agent money.



Brandon Carr's future with the club likely depends on what happens in the next few weeks of free agency.

Morris Claiborne will be back. Scandrick returns from an injury. The club had Nolan Carroll in for a visit Thursday. The Cowboys also have some interest in Green Bay cornerback Casey Hayward, although no visit has been scheduled.

If the Cowboys sign Carroll or Hayward, the next move will be to go to Carr and request a pay cut. The club did this last year and Carr didn't blink, recognizing the Cowboys didn't have the leverage.

That has changed. Claiborne's performed at a high enough level that keeping him and adding another corner in free agency will turn the financial screws on Carr. The club is intent on reducing his $13.8 million cap hit. There are signs that Carr is amendable to reducing his salary.

The question is by how much?

A resolution on this issue could come before next month's draft.

The Cowboys had interest in either Colt McCoy or Chase Daniel as a backup quarterback entering this season.

Both went off the market quickly. Matt Moore was at Valley Ranch for an interview on Thursday. He reportedly had a Monday visit with Indianapolis, but the Colts have signed Scott Tolzien.

Executive vice president Stephen Jones has said the idea heading into next season is to have a veteran to backup Tony Romo and a younger quarterback to develop. If Moore doesn't sign with Dallas, the Cowboys may kick the tires on another veteran or two. But they won't pour a lot of money into this position since they are somewhat comfortable with Kellen Moore and intend to draft another quarterback.

Club officials refuse to declare publicly that Greg Hardy won't return. But the writing is on the wall.

The Cowboys want to keep Jack Crawford. Defensive end Chris Long will visit Valley Ranch later this week. If the club signs both of these players in the next week to 10 days, Hardy won't be back.
 

boozeman

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That's a couple of articles in two days that have little throw-ins about the Cowboys being interested in Casey Heyward.

He hasn't been very active and was high on most listings going into this. Just weird he has not got a lot of action.

I would much rather throw a little more money at him versus giving anything to a schlub like Nolan Carroll.

At least you know he was coached well in Green Bay and wouldn't have many bad habits to break.
 

Smitty

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I like what the article said. Sign Hayward, then ask Carr to take a paycut.

If he does we will already be four deep at corner heading into the draft and won't need another one early. Ramsey either gets selected as a safety or not at all.
 

Simpleton

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It seems to me like we are waiting to see what opportunities become available in free agency before deciding on Carr. If we are able to sign a guy like Hayward to a reasonable deal and gain leverage with Carr we will either force him to take a pay cut or just release him, which will save us millions against the cap. If not we will probably just let him play out his deal.

I don't think it necessarily has to be a CB though, if we need to cut Carr to get the cap space to sign a guy like Weddle to a reasonable deal I think we would do it. I just don't think the organization wanted to cut Carr and then see what happens, they want to see what the market bears and then make the decision, which is smart honestly.
 

Cowboysrock55

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That's a couple of articles in two days that have little throw-ins about the Cowboys being interested in Casey Heyward.

He hasn't been very active and was high on most listings going into this. Just weird he has not got a lot of action.

I would much rather throw a little more money at him versus giving anything to a schlub like Nolan Carroll.

At least you know he was coached well in Green Bay and wouldn't have many bad habits to break.
I wonder if Heyward's agent initially put too high of a price tag on his client. Scared teams away and now that the money has dried up a bit is still sitting out there as a result. I'd love to sign him. One of those perks to being patient in free agency.
 

Simpleton

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Hayward only got 3/15 with 6.8 guaranteed from the Chargers, completely baffling as to why we would not have been in on that. This organization really is idiotic in most instances. We could have basically traded Carr for Hayward, of course that would take a front office that isn't lazy as fuck.

Next thing you know Weddle is going to sign with the Raiders for 4/20 with 9 guaranteed.
 

Cowboysrock55

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Hayward only got 3/15 with 6.8 guaranteed from the Chargers, completely baffling as to why we would not have been in on that. This organization really is idiotic in most instances. We could have basically traded Carr for Hayward, of course that would take a front office that isn't lazy as fuck.
This is one I just don't get. Hayward is an upgrade to Carr in every way imaginable. He is younger. He has an ability to pick off passes that Carr doesn't possess. And he was like the 21st ranked corner in the NFL last year. Carr was way down in the 50's. We could have cut Carr, signed Hayward and saved money in the process. I'm not sure if there is something wrong with Hayward that maybe I'm not aware of but to me this was a no brainer and pisses me off. It's like we have zero desire to actually try and make this defense better. I like the one signing we did make come Jesus Christ this was an easy move that upgrades the defense and saves us money.
 
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Simpleton

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This is one I just don't get. Hayward is an upgrade to Carr in every way imaginable. He is younger. He has an ability to pick of passes that Carr doesn't possess. And he was like the 21st ranked corner in the NFL last year. Carr was way down in the 50's. We could have cut Carr, signed Hayward and saved money in the process. I'm not sure if there is something wrong with Hayward that maybe I'm not aware of but to me this was a no brainer and pisses me off. It's like we have zero desire to actually try and make this defense better. I like the one signing we did make come Jesus Christ this was an easy move that upgrades the defense and saves us money.
Seems to me they're scared little bitches about getting rid of Carr for God knows what reason, same goes for Church.

We could save about 10 million against the cap by getting rid of those two (more if we make Carr a June 1 cut), and yes we'd have dead money, but they'd be off the books for 2017 and we could easily upgrade both spots with that 10 million. But nope, happy to keep things as they are, don't need INT's out of our secondary, just need Jalen Ramsey and everything will be right as rain.
 

Cowboysrock55

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Seems to me they're scared little bitches about getting rid of Carr for God knows what reason, same goes for Church.

We could save about 10 million against the cap by getting rid of those two (more if we make Carr a June 1 cut), and yes we'd have dead money, but they'd be off the books for 2017 and we could easily upgrade both spots with that 10 million. But nope, happy to keep things as they are, don't need INT's out of our secondary, just need Jalen Ramsey and everything will be right as rain.
It's starting to piss me off. Jerry a couple weeks ago acted like he just had no idea how he was going to improve this defense. Well shit, the answers are sitting right in front of your face. Just make the damn moves. Now if we want to actually improve our secondary at corner we have like Leon Hall and Cromartie as options and that is about it. Instead we will just leave Carr out there and get zero ints from our corners again and see him get roasted.
 

DLK150

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I'm alright with not signing Miller given the cost but the front office dropped the ball with Hayward. I can understand being hesitant if the price was too high but he sat and sat and all Dallas did was sit on their hands. Did they not believe he was a fit for the scheme or something? Did we even make an offer? In a few years we went from being aggressive in free agency to spendthrifts. I'm okay with the latter to a degree but when you have the chance to add an obvious upgrade at a reasonable price, you should do it. The thing is, we did it by signing Thornton but didn't when it was another obvious position of need. It doesn't make any sense but then again, you could say it's just a typical Cowboys off season.
 

Simpleton

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It's starting to piss me off. Jerry a couple weeks ago acted like he just had no idea how he was going to improve this defense. Well shit, the answers are sitting right in front of your face. Just make the damn moves. Now if we want to actually improve our secondary at corner we have like Leon Hall and Cromartie as options and that is about it. Instead we will just leave Carr out there and get zero ints from our corners again and see him get roasted.
Yea, Leon Hall or Patrick Robinson would be solid signings and probably even cheaper at this point.

But no, we'll just keep Carr, get rid of him going into 2017, probably let Claiborne go after his 1 year deal and goshdarnit, we'll just have no choice but to spend our 2017 1st on a CB because all we're left with is Scandrick.

When we could've been set up just fine at starting CB for the next 3 years with both Scandrick and Hayward on reasonable deals.
 

UncleMilti

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We are seeing the fallout and the Jerryism of a 12-4 season on the books.

This is typical Jerry....1 week after closing a shitty season he is making declarations to the world about how this team needs talent and what all he's gonna do to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Fast forward, and he's telling everyone Romos got 12 years left, we don't need a QB at pick 4, McFadden is the best RB out there, the core got us to 12-4, and the defense well relative to everything he's seen just wasn't all that bad.

Worst GM ever.
 

Chocolate Lab

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Seems to me they're scared little bitches about getting rid of Carr for God knows what reason, same goes for Church.
I think that's exactly what it is. They're clinging to 2014 as tightly as possible because they stumbled onto success and are scared to get away from it.

In other words, they're about like Garrett on a 4th and 1 from the opponent 40. Punting.
 

VA Cowboy

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We are seeing the fallout and the Jerryism of a 12-4 season on the books.

This is typical Jerry....1 week after closing a shitty season he is making declarations to the world about how this team needs talent and what all he's gonna do to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Fast forward, and he's telling everyone Romos got 12 years left, we don't need a QB at pick 4, McFadden is the best RB out there, the core got us to 12-4, and the defense well relative to everything he's seen just wasn't all that bad.

Worst GM ever.

Yep. In his mind we're vying for the SB if Romo doesn't get hurt. Gave Garrett a pass even though we could only win 1 game without Tony. Roster is basically set, resign most of our jags and only need another defensive starter in the first round to get us over the top.

Of course he ignores the fact '14 was our only winning season in the last 6 years.
 

BipolarFuk

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Yep. In his mind we're vying for the SB if Romo doesn't get hurt. Gave Garrett a pass even though we could only win 1 game without Tony. Roster is basically set, resign most of our jags and only need another defensive starter in the first round to get us over the top.

Of course he ignores the fact '14 was our only winning season in the last 6 years.
Exactly. I don't know how Garrett gets a pass for winning one fucking game without his starting QB.

Look what Bill O'brien has done in Houston with absolute fucking garbage rotating in and out at QB. 18-14 and a playoff appearance.
 

ravidubey

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Exactly. I don't know how Garrett gets a pass for winning one fucking game without his starting QB.

Look what Bill O'brien has done in Houston with absolute fucking garbage rotating in and out at QB. 18-14 and a playoff appearance.
Garrett got a pass because he signed a gigantic deal the prior year.

The Jones' were publicly calling out Garrett's coaching the latter half of the season, and they could do a thing about it except take a monster bath.
 

5Ringzz

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Tampa could really be hurting now with this Doug Miller guy at running back. Not exactly a household name, but I guess they're treating their skill positions like their head coaches now?
 
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