Gosselin: Romo trade rumors; how Dak Prescott had most unlikely NFL rookie campaign

Cotton

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SportsDay columnist Rick Gosselin has held live chats discussing the Dallas Cowboys with readers all year long. Here are some of the best of his responses through the 2016 season and postseason, as well as some of his columns:

What kind of bump (if any) did Tony Romo give his potential trade value with his lone TD drive against the Philadelphia Eagles?


Gosselin: Minimal. He just showed the rest of the league he's no worse for wear. He can still take the snaps, make the reads and then make the throws. If you trade for Romo, you are trading for the contract, which is huge. You'd be doing the Cowboys a favor by taking that contract off their hands. So why would you pay a steep price for the privilege of doing the Cowboys a favor?

Do you think Dak Prescott is able to spread the ball better than Romo because of his short-term relationships with everyone on the field? Whereas Romo, as we know, is much closer to some players than others.

Gosselin: I think Dak is doing what he's told to do -- read your progressions and find the open man. Romo always had the faith in himself that he could make the big play and too often looked for it. He'd make some high-risk passes that could lead to big rewards. Dak isn't making any high-risk throws. He's making the safe pass and keeping it away from the enemy. When a quarterback doesn't turn the ball over, good things happen to a team. He's not forcing it to Dez Bryant or Jason Witten or Terrance Williams -- he's always putting it in the hands of the open man. He's running the offense the way it's supposed to be run.

What positions/areas of need should the Cowboys focus on in the first three rounds of the draft?

Gosselin: Pass rush, pass rush, pass rush. And in the fourth round, I'd also consider another pass rusher. Until the pass rush grows some teeth, this team will not compete for Super Bowls. When you play a four-man front, you're supposed to get your pass rush from the four down linemen. All three sacks the Cowboys got yesterday were from defensive backs. When you're top pass rusher has six sacks, you're not taking your pass rush seriously. The Cowboys are in dire need of a blue-chip edge rusher.

How does Dak avoid being the next Colin Kaepernick or Robert Griffin?


Gosselin: Continue to feature his arm and not his legs. A big part of the early success of Griffin and Kaepernick was what they could do with their legs. Prescott has running ability but he spent his rookie season winning games with his arm. I wouldn't mind seeing him run a bit more -- but he'll go farther in this league with his arm than his legs. I think he understands that. At least he played in 2016 like he understood that.

What's more likely for Romo: Next year's backup, traded to another team in offseason, released and signed to another team this offseason?

Gosselin: Traded. I don't see him wanting to come back as a backup -- and I don't see how the Cowboys can justify paying him $20-plus million to hold a clipboard. The Cowboys would be smart to try to salvage something, anything, for the contract that they gave Romo. A contender in need of a quarterback would have to explore the idea of a trade for Romo. Denver and Houston would have to be at the head of the parade.

Are the Broncos indeed Romo's best fit next year?


Gosselin: Yes, because the Broncos have already worked off of this script with Peyton Manning. They took an older player on a short-term basis and had the pieces in place to win him a championship. And they did. If Romo moves on, it's not to play -- it's to win a championship. So I'd scratch Chicago, Jacksonville and the Jets off the list right now. That leaves Denver and potentially Houston. Both have the defense and the weapons at receiver to allow a veteran quarterback with Romo's career accomplishments to thrive.

Should the Cowboys try to trade Tony Romo? Or will they just grant him his release?

Gosselin: I'd try to trade him if you can get someone to pick up the sizable contract of an aging quarterback who hasn't played at an elite level since 2014. If it's a trade, I'm sure Romo would be involved in the discussions just as Joe Montana was when he was dealt to Kansas City back in the early 1990s. You want to do the player right after all he's given to the organization. If he's playing elsewhere next season, it will be with a contender in the AFC. And the Cowboys would rather it not be an AFC West team (Raiders, Chiefs, Broncos or Chargers). That's the division with whom the Cowboys play interconference games in 2017.

What uniform, if any, will Mark Sanchez be wearing next season?


Gosselin: I would expect him back. I think he proved to be a good sounding board for Dak. He has already walked in Dak's shoes -- starting as a rookie and taking a team to the playoffs. He's been to conference title games. There's value to what he can see and say to Dak beyond what he can do in his own huddle.

Cowboys made it out like this season is a disappointment to them. Do you think that's how the team should look at it or are they overlooking the progress the team made?


Gosselin: When you are the top seed with homefield throughout the playoffs, you expect to reach the Super Bowl. The Cowboys became the first top seed to fail to reach the Super Bowl since 2012. So there's disappointment there. The expectations of January were not met. But go back to the expectations of August -- specifically, when Tony Romo went down. Did anyone expect this team to win 13 games? Did anyone expect them to win 10 games? Did anyone expect this team to make the playoffs? Did anyone expect this team to finish .500 with a rookie fourth-round draft pick at quarterback? If you judge a team on Super Bowls, this season was a failure. But by any other measure, this was a wildly successful season with a promise of better seasons to come.

When you look back at this Cowboys season, what will be the things that stand out the most to you?


Gosselin: The development of the young quarterback and running back. Now, if the Cowboys can do the same thing in 2017 on defense -- find two impact players, preferably in the front seven -- the future will look very bright. Not many teams in the history of the draft have found both a franchise quarterback and running back in the same year.
 

Rev

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Pass Rush. Pass Rush. Pass Rush. Agree with everything Goose said on the pass rush question. If one becomes available then they better not hesitate to at least bring him in for a visit.
 
D

Deuce

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What kind of bump (if any) did Tony Romo give his potential trade value with his lone TD drive against the Philadelphia Eagles?


Gosselin: Minimal. He just showed the rest of the league he's no worse for wear. He can still take the snaps, make the reads and then make the throws. If you trade for Romo, you are trading for the contract, which is huge. You'd be doing the Cowboys a favor by taking that contract off their hands. So why would you pay a steep price for the privilege of doing the Cowboys a favor?
No you idiot. You pay a steep price to add the most important piece to the puzzle for a run at a championship. That doesn't come cheap. Doing the Cowboys a favor is just a by-product of improving your team.
 

Cotton

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No you idiot. You pay a steep price to add the most important piece to the puzzle for a run at a championship. That doesn't come cheap. Doing the Cowboys a favor is just a by-product of improving your team.
Well, they wouldn't be monetarily helping the Cowboys at all. The only help would be in picks we might garner from a trade.
 

BipolarFuk

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Yeah, pass rush if value is there.

Sounds like Goose is going pass rush even if the player is Carver, Ekuban, or Pittman.
 

BipolarFuk

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Or the throw numbers at it approach that netted us Goodrich, Larrimore, and Edwards. :lol
 

Genghis Khan

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No you idiot. You pay a steep price to add the most important piece to the puzzle for a run at a championship. That doesn't come cheap. Doing the Cowboys a favor is just a by-product of improving your team.
Exactly. That was a really dumb take.
 

Jiggyfly

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Exactly. That was a really dumb take.
That's usually what you get from Gosselin.

How he still has a job is baffling, he brings nothing interesting or meaningful to the table.

He is entirely grumpy old man these days.
 

VA Cowboy

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Luckily, this draft is deep in linemen.
Yep. I'd be disappointed and surprised if we don't go DL in the first. There's 3-4 DL projected as last first rounders and we'll be fortunate to have BPA match up with our need. TE is also deep this year. Getting a pass rusher along with a TE and DB or RT on day two would be ideal.
 

Cowboysrock55

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Yep. I'd be disappointed and surprised if we don't go DL in the first. There's 3-4 DL projected as last first rounders and we'll be fortunate to have BPA match up with our need. TE is also deep this year. Getting a pass rusher along with a TE and DB or RT on day two would be ideal.
Seems like there have been a lot of shitty TE classes in recent years. This is not one of them. There are a lot of really good TE's in this draft. To the point that I actually think it would be wasteful to take one in the first round. I certainly think it is a great time to take advantage of that depth. With Witten's age he probably isn't too far away from retirement anymore. It actually finally makes great sense to draft a TE.
 

Cowboysrock55

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No you idiot. You pay a steep price to add the most important piece to the puzzle for a run at a championship. That doesn't come cheap. Doing the Cowboys a favor is just a by-product of improving your team.
Sounds like someone who has no idea about contracts. The contract for a team that trades for Romo is actually pretty modest. For a starting NFL QB at least, 14 mil is very modest. What an idiot.
 

p1_

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Luckily, this draft is deep in linemen.
Thank God. We need to address DL like we did the disaster of an oline we had before we had Smith, Frederick and Martin.
 

Cowboysrock55

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Thank God. We need to address DL like we did the disaster of an oline we had before we had Smith, Frederick and Martin.
Yeah its time to actually use a first round pick on the Dline. We don't necissarily need numbers on the Dline, we just need elite players. I'm hopeful Collins can take the next step to at least give us one.
 
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