Kavner: Given The Cap, “Good” Drafts Not Good Enough

boozeman

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Kavner: Given The Cap, “Good” Drafts Not Good Enough

Posted 44 minutes ago



Rowan Kavner

DallasCowboys.com Staff Writer

IRVING, Texas – Apart from the ambiguous comments regarding the roles of the Cowboys’ coaching staff, one other comment during the Senior Bowl resonated long after leaving Mobile, Ala.

It wasn’t the message but rather the fact that it was said aloud, verbalizing a reality that many already knew, which made it stick.

“I don’t ever see a time when we, the Cowboys, won’t be under some serious challenges on the salary cap,” said owner/general manager Jerry Jones. “I think that’ll always be there for us, because we’re that aggressive with our dollars.”


The Cowboys set up contracts knowing restructures will be likely, if not necessary, at some point in the future. They found out a way to get under the cap last year more seamlessly than many predicted, but they did so with those same restructures that push money back to be paid at a later date while providing short-term cap relief.

That puts them in a position that’ll be challenging to navigate for the foreseeable future if the Cowboys want to add any pieces. Don’t bother looking at the list of unrestricted free agents this year. If you love an available player (i.e. Jared Allen, Anquan Boldin, Ryan Clark, Jason Hatcher) he’s an unlikely option for the Cowboys, given their cap circumstances.

If the Cowboys are going to be a playoff challenger any time soon, they need to be among the league’s best drafters and talent assessors. A good draft is not good enough. They have to be near perfect evaluators.

Jones prefaced his comments about the cap saying the team always wants to do as well as it possibly can in the draft, regardless of its cap situation. But that situation makes all the difference. It puts the pressure on to make sure the team hits consistently with its selections.


Drafts have gotten better in recent years, with Dez Bryant and Sean Lee arriving in 2010 and Tyron Smith, Bruce Carter and DeMarco Murray in 2011.

The verdict’s still out on the latest drafts, though many have already concluded their opinions on the 2012 draft, which included three players in Morris Claiborne, Tyrone Crawford and Matt Johnson that no one’s seen fully healthy. It’s also difficult to draw definitive conclusions on the latest draft, even though Travis Frederick and Terrance Williams appear to be strong bets to contribute for a long time.

There are reasons to be optimistic about a multitude of players from drafts in the Jason Garrett era, but the three or four misses a draft can’t happen if the Cowboys want to be consistent contenders.

That’s a lot of pressure to put on the draft every year, considering teams aren’t going to hit on every selection, but it’s a reality in Dallas given the lack of funds available in free agency.
 

Cotton

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So, basically, Jerry plans on counting on nothing but rookies and people already on the team to try to win with. Fucking brilliant.
 
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Deuce

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So, basically, Jerry plans on counting on nothing but rookies and people already on the team to try to win with. Fucking brilliant.
There's a handful of people on this board that could only be given the draft to work with and this team would win 10 games, IMO. There's that much talent out there.

Problem is, Jerry isn't one of those people.
 

Plan9Misfit

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So, basically, Jerry plans on counting on nothing but rookies and people already on the team to try to win with. Fucking brilliant.
All while continually mortgaging future caps in order to finance the current one.
 

ravidubey

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All while continually mortgaging future caps in order to finance the current one.
Problems all started (this time) when they paid Miles Austin elite money. That one contract got them in trouble with the league and paid out a shit ton of money to a player who failed to earn more than a quarter of it.

Then that Brandon Carr contract was flat out crazy. They were closing in on a deal for something like 4 years 28 million and then the Rams signed Courtland Finnegan and changed the "market value" right in the middle of negotiations. WTF were the Rams thinking, paying that much money?

All Jones had to do was say "no", but the MFer got locked in. He must have thought Carr was all that separated him from the Giants, and by association a Superbowl title. How fucking delusional can you get?

Thing is, even the Rams were smart enough to front-load Finnegan's salaries so they could at least possibly opt out once Finnegan starts his inevitable decline. If St. Louis cut him today their cap hit would be 6 million. If Dallas cuts Carr the hit is almost 17 million.

Because of Carr, Austin, and Jones' insane need to restructure and keep DeMarcus Ware, Dallas just can't sign anyone, especially since Dez is going to ask for the GNP of a small nation. Just imagine the cap hell when Romo's and Ware's bills finally are too much to bear competing with Smith, Lee, Carr, and Bryant. Dallas will be forced to look at turning good contracts like Scandrick's and Witten's into restructured bad ones.
 
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BipolarFuk

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I should have spent XP to change Dez to predictable. I offered him a contract for the money he wanted and he wadded it up, tossed it, and ended contract negotiations. Now I have to use the franchise tag. Virtual fucker.
 

Cotton

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Problems all started (this time) when they paid Miles Austin elite money. That one contract got them in trouble with the league and paid out a shit ton of money to a player who failed to earn more than a quarter of it.

Then that Brandon Carr contract was flat out crazy. They were closing in on a deal for something like 4 years 28 million and then the Rams signed Courtland Finnegan and changed the "market value" right in the middle of negotiations. WTF were the Rams thinking, paying that much money?

All Jones had to do was say "no", but the MFer got locked in. He must have thought Carr was all that separated him from the Giants, and by association a Superbowl title. How fucking delusional can you get?

Thing is, even the Rams were smart enough to front-load Finnegan's salaries so they could at least possibly opt out once Finnegan starts his inevitable decline. If St. Louis cut him today their cap hit would be 6 million. If Dallas cuts Carr the hit is almost 17 million.

Because of Carr, Austin, and Jones' insane need to restructure and keep DeMarcus Ware, Dallas just can't sign anyone, especially since Dez is going to ask for the GNP of a small nation. Just imagine the cap hell when Romo's and Ware's bills finally are too much to bear competing with Smith, Lee, Carr, and Bryant. Dallas will be forced to look at turning good contracts like Scandrick's and Witten's into restructured bad ones.
Ding ding mf'ing ding.
 

1bigfan13

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“I don’t ever see a time when we, the Cowboys, won’t be under some serious challenges on the salary cap,” said owner/general manager Jerry Jones. “I think that’ll always be there for us, because we’re that aggressive with our dollars.”
Shouldn't that read "because we're careless with our dollars"?

It's funny how he's always bragging about the money the Cowboys spend as if it's a badge of honor.

They spend the most on their team and get marginal results from all the money being spent. Honestly it makes him and the organization look bad yet he's too clueless to realize that.

Someone should tell him that it's actually more impressive to field a championship caliber team that has plenty of cap space. Because that would mean the GM and front office are hitting on draft picks, UDFAs, mid-tier free agents, etc.
 
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Simpleton

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Problems all started (this time) when they paid Miles Austin elite money. That one contract got them in trouble with the league and paid out a shit ton of money to a player who failed to earn more than a quarter of it.

Then that Brandon Carr contract was flat out crazy. They were closing in on a deal for something like 4 years 28 million and then the Rams signed Courtland Finnegan and changed the "market value" right in the middle of negotiations. WTF were the Rams thinking, paying that much money?

All Jones had to do was say "no", but the MFer got locked in. He must have thought Carr was all that separated him from the Giants, and by association a Superbowl title. How fucking delusional can you get?

Thing is, even the Rams were smart enough to front-load Finnegan's salaries so they could at least possibly opt out once Finnegan starts his inevitable decline. If St. Louis cut him today their cap hit would be 6 million. If Dallas cuts Carr the hit is almost 17 million.

Because of Carr, Austin, and Jones' insane need to restructure and keep DeMarcus Ware, Dallas just can't sign anyone, especially since Dez is going to ask for the GNP of a small nation. Just imagine the cap hell when Romo's and Ware's bills finally are too much to bear competing with Smith, Lee, Carr, and Bryant. Dallas will be forced to look at turning good contracts like Scandrick's and Witten's into restructured bad ones.
Ware and Romo won't be Cowboys past the 2015 season so I don't really see that being a huge issue, Carr and Witten probably as well.
 

1bigfan13

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Problems all started (this time) when they paid Miles Austin elite money. That one contract got them in trouble with the league and paid out a shit ton of money to a player who failed to earn more than a quarter of it.

Then that Brandon Carr contract was flat out crazy. They were closing in on a deal for something like 4 years 28 million and then the Rams signed Courtland Finnegan and changed the "market value" right in the middle of negotiations. WTF were the Rams thinking, paying that much money?

All Jones had to do was say "no", but the MFer got locked in. He must have thought Carr was all that separated him from the Giants, and by association a Superbowl title. How fucking delusional can you get?

Thing is, even the Rams were smart enough to front-load Finnegan's salaries so they could at least possibly opt out once Finnegan starts his inevitable decline. If St. Louis cut him today their cap hit would be 6 million. If Dallas cuts Carr the hit is almost 17 million.

Because of Carr, Austin, and Jones' insane need to restructure and keep DeMarcus Ware, Dallas just can't sign anyone, especially since Dez is going to ask for the GNP of a small nation. Just imagine the cap hell when Romo's and Ware's bills finally are too much to bear competing with Smith, Lee, Carr, and Bryant. Dallas will be forced to look at turning good contracts like Scandrick's and Witten's into restructured bad ones.
Actually the problem started before Miles Austin's contract. I point to the horrific contracts handed to Terence Newman and MBIII in 2008.

Both contracts were done after the the 2008 draft had concluded. A draft that had yielded us a 1st round RB in Felix Jones; a 1st round CB in Mike Jenkins, a 5th round CB (Scandrick) who many had as one of the best steals of the draft; and a 4th round RB in Tashard Choice.

No one knows why on God's green earth the idiots in charge felt compelled to give MBIII a 7 year $45M contract extension and Terence Newman a 6 year $50M deal.

Just flat out stupid to sign those guys to contracts of that amount following that draft.

That's where the recent cap troubles began, IMO.
 

Simpleton

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Actually the problem started before Miles Austin's contract. I point to the horrific contracts handed to Terence Newman and MBIII in 2008.

Both contracts were done after the the 2008 draft had concluded. A draft that had yielded us a 1st round RB in Felix Jones; a 1st round CB in Mike Jenkins, a 5th round CB (Scandrick) who many had as one of the best steals of the draft; and a 4th round RB in Tashard Choice.

No one knows why on God's green earth the idiots in charge felt compelled to give MBIII a 7 year $45M contract extension and Terence Newman a 6 year $50M deal.

Just flat out stupid to sign those guys to contracts of that amount following that draft.

That's where the recent cap troubles began, IMO.
The worst one of all was Ratliff, he had 2 years left on his deal I believe, was clearly starting to wear down and we gave him that fat extension for no good reason. It's just Jerry being an idiot, he's too loyal to his players because he wants to be their friend and he's afraid of having to replace people, most likely because subconiscously he knows he's a buffoon.
 

ravidubey

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That's where the recent cap troubles began, IMO.
They were bad in a series of bad cap moves dating back to the mid 90's. I point out 2010 because as an uncapped year it was a chance to finally get healthy, and instead Jerry started a new round of trouble. Austin's deal was outrageous by any standard.
 

Cotton

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Romo's deal was very similar to Aikman's late deal. Except, I think Aikman's was 7 years.
 

townsend

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Romo's deal was very similar to Aikman's late deal. Except, I think Aikman's was 7 years.
This Romo deal is going to be the bane of the franchise. I bet he misses most of the next two seasons, and when we cut him the cap hangover will stay on the books for another year or two. This decade was our equivalent to the Switzer/Gailey era (talent wise, Garrett is no where close to their coaching ability). The "Campo" era is just beginning.
 
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