Archer: Cowboys don't need big name free agents or something

bbgun

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Cowboys tried to make free-agent splash but can get better with ripples, too


Todd Archer, ESPN Staff Writer


FRISCO, Texas -- That it happens every year shouldn’t be a surprise, but somehow it still does.

Free agency is two days old and the Dallas Cowboys have done nothing.

NOTHING!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS? JERRY JONES JUST DOESN’T CARE ANYMORE!!! ALL HE CARES ABOUT IS HIS MONEY!!! I’M NEVER GOING TO WATCH ANOTHER GAME!!! I CAN’T BELIEVE HE FIRED TOM LANDRY!!!!

Except it’s not really nothing. DeMarcus Lawrence was retained on the franchise tag at a cost of $17.143 million. David Irving was given the second-round tender as a restricted free agent. There is the tiniest of chances the Cowboys’ top two defensive linemen won’t be on the team in 2018.

But that doesn’t count to a lot of fans. The Cowboys already had Lawrence and Irving, and they were only so good that Dallas finished 9-7 in 2017. Well, would the Cowboys be better in 2018 without them?

Just about everybody wants splashes. The kind of splash a 350-pound offensive lineman would make from the high diving board.

The Cowboys tried to make that splash as the market opened. They were deep into the fray with wide receiver Sammy Watkins, who took a three-year, $48 million deal with the Kansas City Chiefs. Their offer wasn’t far off, but Watkins opted for Kansas City.

Had the Cowboys landed Watkins, the reaction would have been outrageous.

JERRY’S A GENIUS!! HE’S ALL-IN!! IT’S SUPER BOWL OR BUST!! NOW THIS IS DAK-FRIENDLY!! HOW 'BOUT THEM COWBOYS?

And maybe then everybody would have noticed Watkins has one 1,000-yard season in his career and he caught just 39 passes for the Los Angeles Rams last season.

As executive vice president Stephen Jones has reminded us over and over and over, good players get great-player money in free agency. The Cowboys were ready to overpay for Watkins, whose talent they hoped a reunion with receivers coach Sanjay Lal would unlock.

Trying to sign Watkins was a good move. Not paying him as a top-five receiver in the NFL might be an even better move.

This is the free-agency conundrum. If you want in on early free-agency signings, you have to overpay. Being reasonable in any field these days doesn’t matter.

The Cowboys’ free-agency strategy isn’t necessarily wrong, but they have done a poor job lately identifying free agents at the right price to help. Too often they have seemed to have wanted to “win the deal,” rather than improve the roster.

In 2016, the Cowboys signed defensive tackle Cedric Thornton away from the Philadelphia Eagles with a four-year, $17 million deal. He did not start a game and was cut before the 2017 season began. Last year, the Cowboys signed cornerback Nolan Carroll to a four-year, $10 million deal and he was cut by late October.

Of the five unrestricted free agents the Cowboys signed last year, only Byron Bell made it through the season on the roster.

The best free-agent signing the Cowboys have in the past five years is defensive end Jeremy Mincey, who came to town with a two-year, $3 million contract. He led the Cowboys in sacks in 2014 but did not have a sack in 2015. Greg Hardy's one-year deal in 2015 did not do the Cowboys any salary-cap harm, but it did not help them on the field or in the locker room.

Even at this early point in free agency, the splashes are over. The big money mostly has been spent.

Now comes the smart shopping. This is where the Cowboys have to do better than they have in recent years. They can find useful pieces to close the gap on the Philadelphia Eagles and anybody else ahead of them in the NFC.

They tried the splash with Watkins, but making some ripples can go a long way in helping the core of the roster get back to the playoffs in 2018.
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sometimes you'd swear Archer was on Jerry's payroll
 

Cujo

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I had to scroll back to see if that was Spags.
 

Rev

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Been doing it his way for 20 something years. Eat more shit cowboy fans.
 

BipolarFuk

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Yeah, I wouldn't have been happy giving Watkins close to anything like he got with the Chiefs.

Numbers just not there. And can't count on QB1 to make him better.
 

Chocolate Lab

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Todd Spagnola said:
NOTHING!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS? JERRY JONES JUST DOESN’T CARE ANYMORE!!! ALL HE CARES ABOUT IS HIS MONEY!!! I’M NEVER GOING TO WATCH ANOTHER GAME!!! I CAN’T BELIEVE HE FIRED TOM LANDRY!!!!

Except it’s not really nothing. DeMarcus Lawrence was retained on the franchise tag at a cost of $17.143 million. David Irving was given the second-round tender as a restricted free agent.
So paying the same players you had more money counts?

I think to most fans, "doing something" means actually getting new, better players.
 

Couchcoach

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If we put our frustration aside, he makes some good points. Do we really want to give big long term contracts to underachieving players?
On the flip side if that, there are some true difference makers out there. But we're just in a hell of a spot financially to get them.
I'd love to get Mattheiu or Thomas. Or Poe at DT. Problem is how do we do this realistically while we're trying to sign Martin and Lawrence to long term deals?
 

mcnuttz

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If we put our frustration aside, he makes some good points. Do we really want to give big long term contracts to underachieving players?
On the flip side if that, there are some true difference makers out there. But we're just in a hell of a spot financially to get them.
I'd love to get Mattheiu or Thomas. Or Poe at DT. Problem is how do we do this realistically while we're trying to sign Martin and Lawrence to long term deals?
They could start by getting the deals done.
 

boozeman

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Jeremy Fucking Mincey is our best FA addition in 5 years. Let that sink in....
It is pretty easy to figure out why.

We are cheap.

We don't offer much in terms of guaranteed money.

If I were a free agent I wouldn't even bother to return the call if these skinflints gave me a buzz.
 

boozeman

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If we put our frustration aside, he makes some good points. Do we really want to give big long term contracts to underachieving players?
Fuck him.

Every NFL team gives these kinds of contracts out. There might be one or two that don't anymore, one of which is Pittsburgh.

We are trying to become a cheap copy of the Steelers, but the issue is, we have a retarded braintrust that has a real problem evaluating our own.

Figuring out if the talent under your own roof is half the battle.

The Steelers have made the tough decisions over the years, like letting Mike Wallace and Emmanuel Sanders go.

If they were Cowboys, they would have been locked up.

We overvalue what we have, undervalue what others have and we are stuck with shit like we have right now.

We literally have only 52 players under contract right now when most teams are over 70 towards the offseason goal of 90.

We are cheap. And it is not just cap space. They can make that easily.

But yet we are going into the third day of FA tomorrow. Nothing.

Laziest. Front. Office. Ever.

And now cheapest.
 

Couchcoach

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Fuck him.

Every NFL team gives these kinds of contracts out. There might be one or two that don't anymore, one of which is Pittsburgh.

We are trying to become a cheap copy of the Steelers, but the issue is, we have a retarded braintrust that has a real problem evaluating our own.

Figuring out if the talent under your own roof is half the battle.

The Steelers have made the tough decisions over the years, like letting Mike Wallace and Emmanuel Sanders go.

If they were Cowboys, they would have been locked up.

We overvalue what we have, undervalue what others have and we are stuck with shit like we have right now.

We literally have only 52 players under contract right now when most teams are over 70 towards the offseason goal of 90.

We are cheap. And it is not just cap space. They can make that easily.

But yet we are going into the third day of FA tomorrow. Nothing.

Laziest. Front. Office. Ever.

And now cheapest.
And what frustrates me the most is how we scrape the bottom of the free agent bargain bin looking for rejects to fill holes on our starting lineup.
 

Genghis Khan

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I actually agree with the article. We don't need the big name free agents. It's almost always an inefficient use of resources.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel is okay, but that can't be all you do.

You have to find three or four mid-tier free agents. Aaron Glenn. Gerald Sensabaugh. Anthony Henry. Kyle Kosier.

That's how you really improve your team, but we seem to have forgotten how to do that.
 

Cowboysrock55

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I actually agree with the article. We don't need the big name free agents. It's almost always an inefficient use of resources.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel is okay, but that can't be all you do.

You have to find three or four mid-tier free agents. Aaron Glenn. Gerald Sensabaugh. Anthony Henry. Kyle Kosier.

That's how you really improve your team, but we seem to have forgotten how to do that.
We wait too long. It's ok to skip out on the first wave but you have to get in on the second wave. Instead it's like we wait until everything is over and hope someone is still left around.
 

p1_

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I agree that it’s better to let the initial wave of overspending pass by. But then you need to hit on something solid in the period that follows.
 

Cujo

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Add up what we wasted last year on guys that were all gone by midseason and I'd be okay with spending that on one difference maker.
 

Cotton

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Archer has gotten so bad.
 

Plan9Misfit

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Archer has gotten so bad.
Joan must have announced that she was giving a pay raise to the journalist who puffed her peter the best, and Archer now thinks he can out-suck Spags.
 

Cotton

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Joan must have announced that she was giving a pay raise to the journalist who puffed her peter the best, and Archer now thinks he can out-suck Spags.
At least Spags is on Jerruh’s payroll. Archer is not.
 

jsmith6919

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