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By Bob Sturm 11m ago
138 days since Super Bowl 53 in Atlanta, 160 days since the Cowboys lost in Los Angeles in the playoffs, 34 days until they depart for training camp in Oxnard and 79 days until they open their season at AT&T Stadium against the New York Giants at 3:25 p.m. (not that we are counting)…
It may be hard to wrap your head around this fun fact, but we are now within five weeks of “football season” returning. That means any sort of downtime is quickly slipping away, and it is time to begin preparing for the next march through a long (and hopefully memorable) Cowboys season. (Although those of you who like to try to ignore as much of training camp as possible so as to preserve your sanity still have 11 weeks before the actual regular season returns, which should preserve your summer.)
Football is getting nearer but, for now, there’s not much to see right now. Players find a beach, coaches find a beach and even the smart writers will escape for the annual family snorkeling adventure. So, as I used to write in yearbooks, “Have a happy summer!”
Let’s amuse ourselves with a quick run through my mailbag (which is made up of Twitter mentions this week) and see what we come up with. You can also take this opportunity to read any pieces from this week that you missed:
Our Cowboys 19 in ’19 list
My offensive line report cards
My study on the hated Drive Killers
Ok, now on to your queries…
I know your thoughts on Zeke, but how easy/hard will it be to pay him, Dak, and Cooper the market rate while still staying competing for a Superbowl? @strobman6
I anticipate this is one of those questions that causes all sorts of stress for your average Cowboys fan and the answer for me is “yes.”
Of course, the other answer for me is that salary cap management seldom determines the Super Bowl winner. And the third answer is that the salary cap is one of the least-understood mechanisms in sports, one which can be very easily manipulated by teams to maneuver as they wish and one which seldom actually blocks a franchise from progress. I know that answer probably triggers its own individual 3,000-word piece, so I had better reel it in a bit – but I don’t believe the salary cap has ever really blocked the Cowboys or any other big spender from doing too much. Rather, teams know how to massage it, manipulate it and work around it when they want, but also then use it as a catch-all excuse to the public when they don’t wish to spend on a certain player in a given “pull back” year.
Can the Cowboys pay everyone and survive? We first must ask whether that is a smart decision. But we must also see that the franchise has begun making plans to do that sort of thing in the last few years, and you might notice that they have hardly restructured any contracts at all since Tony Romo’s departure in 2016 following a decade of doing so regularly. In other words, they have not refinanced their credit card balance by moving it to a new card; rather, they have made all of their payments on time. What that means is that they have paid Tyron Smith and Zack Martin mostly on schedule during this stretch and, when teams do this, they preserve their flexibility for a time when they need it. This tells you they have all sorts of wiggle room moving forward.
I am not dying to pay everyone at the top of their pay scale, but I do believe this conversation has been had enough for us to assume that when the Cowboys shift their money to the young “skill position” players, they will have to adjust how they pay the offensive line. That is why you should be happy to see them paying all of those players up front now even though they will stay on the payroll through 2023. They are making those big payments in 2018 and 2019, when everything else is cheap, and then it will shift moving forward. So it can and will be done, but your next question about whether it will result in a Super Bowl will go back to what normally determines that – whether they will be able to deal with the NFC powers that stand in their way – instead of how they structure their paychecks.
Would you drop everything, current employment wise, to join the front office of a major sports team if the opportunity ever came up? If not now, would you entertain the idea in the future? @priest_other
This is a very interesting question, and I thank you for the flattery of thinking a team would be interested in my nonsense. My first ambition in sports was to play in the NBA, and that clearly didn’t materialize. I then aspired to be a play-by-play broadcaster, and that morphed into this career which allows me to write, talk and think about football all day and night. I can’t believe how great things have been on my road from young sports nerd to old sports nerd, and I would definitely not want to throw it all away just because of a short-term opportunity coming my way at this spot in life where I am about to have several college educations to subsidize.
That said, if one of my employers – who happens to be a Hall of Fame quarterback and football legend who can probably do whatever he wants to do in life – ever heads to a front office (as he has suggested publicly is on his radar) and invites me to continue to ride shotgun for him, I would be very tempted to continue working for him in a very different capacity. But, since I assume that is just a hypothetical for both parties, I plan on continuing in this capacity until I can permanently move to a snorkel vacation destination and watch football with a coconut that has a straw sticking out of it in my hand. I hope that convoluted riff makes a small amount of sense.
Have you ever had a hot drink? @ryancolteryahn
I am enjoying one right now, and I think Brooks Koepka is insane for suggesting he has never had one. I love hot drinks and even had one yesterday afternoon when my dashboard read 101 degrees on the way home. He might really be a cyborg.
Do U have any insight on why Cowboys R so sluggish in getting contracts put to bed on Dak, Amari, Byron, Zeke, Jaylon, et al. They wanted DLaw to prove it again – cost them many $M extra. Except 4 Byron, they don’t need a prove it year. If Byron = DLaw, it will cost many $M more. @mcbanning47
This is certainly a frequently asked question: Why do the Cowboys take so long to get these contract signed
Well, my theory – that I can’t really prove when teams aren’t quick to air their laundry with me – is that they are constantly being high-balled by the agents and players who know the Cowboys are a team that pays top dollar. The Cowboys have spent lavishly throughout Jerry Jones’ tenure and also have risen in the Forbes rankings every year. They are now far above every global franchise in revenue and valuation. Trust me: If you are making more money than Real Madrid, you are making some ridiculous money. This money has purchased helicopters, art, yachts, and everything you can imagine because, unlike Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Manchester United, the Cowboys have a fixed amount they can rededicate to players. So it is the best of both worlds for the Jones family. They have a fixed amount to spend, but an infinite amount to rake in. It is a beautiful thing.
The problem – which is a wonderful problem to have – is that the people who work for them live in this bubble and almost never take a hometown discount to play for them. Why work for cheap when the money could literally fill a swimming pool at the boss’ fourth house? My theory has always been that everyone loves trying to make the Jones family pay the top possible price for everything and let someone else take a discount, and this results in every player in Dallas thinking they should be the top-paid player at their position because they play that position for the Dallas freaking Cowboys. Salary cap or no, that is why Lawrence, Cooper, Prescott, Elliott and everyone else always seem to ask for the moon, and then the Cowboys have to fight to manage a full salary cap – even if the players are not quite worth the price tags relative to their colleagues in other markets. It is hard to come to work at the most money-rich workplace in the industry and not think you deserve a bit more than your boss tells you from his $250 million boat.
Who will the Stars sign in UFA? And who SHOULD they sign? @vr271234
Great question, and I think it is probably time to point out the obvious: The odds of Mats Zuccarello returning are declining with each passing day. Clearly, the sides exchanged numbers and wound up far apart, because there is no incentive for the Stars to let him get to July 1 without a deal if they are comfortable with his asking price. Their deal with Ben Bishop a few seasons back was easy to execute and done almost instantly, as he surely took a team-friendly deal to demonstrate how he wanted to be in Dallas. Now, a goaltender is different than a wing because there is only one No. 1 goalie in each city, and if 20-25 teams always have their top guy, Bishop’s options were limited. But Zuccarello has 30 possibilities who all need four scoring wingers, and this is a pretty weak free-agency class. There is every reason to believe he can just let the auction come to him on July 1 and go where the cash is for his first real sniff at free agency. The Stars might assume he is gone and make other plans. If they do, maybe they circle back and try to take a run at another high-end target like Matt Duchene or Artemi Panarin. I am not holding my breath, and I will assume they are looking at the trade options with so many teams up against the cap, but we shall see. I know they want to be aggressive and feel their window is now. If they don’t spend their money on Zuccarello, I suspect they won’t leave empty-handed this summer.
Was Joey a legitimate MVP candidate before he got injured? @pounder888
That’s a good question, and we are all happy his return is imminent. Joey Gallo put on a show in the first two months of 2019 and that was awesome, and I feel weird having a June 1 MVP discussion – especially for players who emerged and found a new level recently. Gallo’s biggest obstacle was to maintain his new approach rather than to worry about measuring up to the AL MVP race, but it was certainly a fun discussion while it lasted based on a player leading the league in OPS and playing a reasonable center field in the process. I’m looking forward to seeing him again, now.
Help my sports soul. Knowing what we know about injuries and matchups, did the Stars have enough to beat San Jose and Boston? In other words, were we mere inches away from a Stanley Cup? @AreAyEye
I would rest easy and suggest that while the Stars had a nice run, it was not their year. I don’t like the transitive property premise of sports in these settings, and I certainly don’t think the Blues’ Stanley Cup victory means that had the Stars won Game 7 in St Louis, they would have won the Cup, too. Maybe. I can’t rule it out, but there were too many holes this season with too many young players and not enough depth for me to suggest this team had a Cup in them. They need another scorer and another top-four defenseman and, honestly, another year of experience for Hintz, Heiskanen and the kids. I like their future, but I don’t think we can suggest they were almost champions this season.
Finally, this response from our Cowboys 19 for ’19 list….
Great memories attached to every name. The current Cowboys DL could learn from watching Randy White. He was will-to-win personified. My favourite highlight is the week 8 1984 sack and forced fumble on Ken Stabler at the N.O.Saints 1 yard line with 3 minutes left and Dallas trailing the Saints 20-27. Jim Jeffcoat recovered the fumble in the end zone and Rafel Septien tied it up with the extra point then won it in overtime. The Saints had never beaten the Cowboys in Dallas at that point in their history and #54 did all in his power to keep the streak alive. – Phillip N.
As a champion sports nerd, I collect old games on a massive hard drive. I happen to have this game, and it is a ridiculous game indeed. If someone is going to tell me their favorite Randy White play and I can go get it to show you what he is talking about, I am going to do that. Dallas entered the fourth quarter down 27-6 to New Orleans on Monday Night Football in 1984. They needed a play from Randy White and he provided it. This is 3rd and 18 and the Saints think they should try a pass, because if they punt it back to the Cowboys, they risk the game being tied up.
Welp, the game is now tied up.
Here is White against LG Louis Oubre on the left of the screen. God bless Louis, but this is just not his best career snap against the Manster. Jeffcoat recovers the ball in the end zone, the game was tied at 27-27 and Rafael Septien won it in overtime 35 years ago.
You don’t want to be isolated against Randy White on 3rd-and-18 with the game on the line.
Have a great weekend!
By Bob Sturm 11m ago
138 days since Super Bowl 53 in Atlanta, 160 days since the Cowboys lost in Los Angeles in the playoffs, 34 days until they depart for training camp in Oxnard and 79 days until they open their season at AT&T Stadium against the New York Giants at 3:25 p.m. (not that we are counting)…
It may be hard to wrap your head around this fun fact, but we are now within five weeks of “football season” returning. That means any sort of downtime is quickly slipping away, and it is time to begin preparing for the next march through a long (and hopefully memorable) Cowboys season. (Although those of you who like to try to ignore as much of training camp as possible so as to preserve your sanity still have 11 weeks before the actual regular season returns, which should preserve your summer.)
Football is getting nearer but, for now, there’s not much to see right now. Players find a beach, coaches find a beach and even the smart writers will escape for the annual family snorkeling adventure. So, as I used to write in yearbooks, “Have a happy summer!”
Let’s amuse ourselves with a quick run through my mailbag (which is made up of Twitter mentions this week) and see what we come up with. You can also take this opportunity to read any pieces from this week that you missed:
Our Cowboys 19 in ’19 list
My offensive line report cards
My study on the hated Drive Killers
Ok, now on to your queries…
I know your thoughts on Zeke, but how easy/hard will it be to pay him, Dak, and Cooper the market rate while still staying competing for a Superbowl? @strobman6
I anticipate this is one of those questions that causes all sorts of stress for your average Cowboys fan and the answer for me is “yes.”
Of course, the other answer for me is that salary cap management seldom determines the Super Bowl winner. And the third answer is that the salary cap is one of the least-understood mechanisms in sports, one which can be very easily manipulated by teams to maneuver as they wish and one which seldom actually blocks a franchise from progress. I know that answer probably triggers its own individual 3,000-word piece, so I had better reel it in a bit – but I don’t believe the salary cap has ever really blocked the Cowboys or any other big spender from doing too much. Rather, teams know how to massage it, manipulate it and work around it when they want, but also then use it as a catch-all excuse to the public when they don’t wish to spend on a certain player in a given “pull back” year.
Can the Cowboys pay everyone and survive? We first must ask whether that is a smart decision. But we must also see that the franchise has begun making plans to do that sort of thing in the last few years, and you might notice that they have hardly restructured any contracts at all since Tony Romo’s departure in 2016 following a decade of doing so regularly. In other words, they have not refinanced their credit card balance by moving it to a new card; rather, they have made all of their payments on time. What that means is that they have paid Tyron Smith and Zack Martin mostly on schedule during this stretch and, when teams do this, they preserve their flexibility for a time when they need it. This tells you they have all sorts of wiggle room moving forward.
I am not dying to pay everyone at the top of their pay scale, but I do believe this conversation has been had enough for us to assume that when the Cowboys shift their money to the young “skill position” players, they will have to adjust how they pay the offensive line. That is why you should be happy to see them paying all of those players up front now even though they will stay on the payroll through 2023. They are making those big payments in 2018 and 2019, when everything else is cheap, and then it will shift moving forward. So it can and will be done, but your next question about whether it will result in a Super Bowl will go back to what normally determines that – whether they will be able to deal with the NFC powers that stand in their way – instead of how they structure their paychecks.
Would you drop everything, current employment wise, to join the front office of a major sports team if the opportunity ever came up? If not now, would you entertain the idea in the future? @priest_other
This is a very interesting question, and I thank you for the flattery of thinking a team would be interested in my nonsense. My first ambition in sports was to play in the NBA, and that clearly didn’t materialize. I then aspired to be a play-by-play broadcaster, and that morphed into this career which allows me to write, talk and think about football all day and night. I can’t believe how great things have been on my road from young sports nerd to old sports nerd, and I would definitely not want to throw it all away just because of a short-term opportunity coming my way at this spot in life where I am about to have several college educations to subsidize.
That said, if one of my employers – who happens to be a Hall of Fame quarterback and football legend who can probably do whatever he wants to do in life – ever heads to a front office (as he has suggested publicly is on his radar) and invites me to continue to ride shotgun for him, I would be very tempted to continue working for him in a very different capacity. But, since I assume that is just a hypothetical for both parties, I plan on continuing in this capacity until I can permanently move to a snorkel vacation destination and watch football with a coconut that has a straw sticking out of it in my hand. I hope that convoluted riff makes a small amount of sense.
Have you ever had a hot drink? @ryancolteryahn
I am enjoying one right now, and I think Brooks Koepka is insane for suggesting he has never had one. I love hot drinks and even had one yesterday afternoon when my dashboard read 101 degrees on the way home. He might really be a cyborg.
Do U have any insight on why Cowboys R so sluggish in getting contracts put to bed on Dak, Amari, Byron, Zeke, Jaylon, et al. They wanted DLaw to prove it again – cost them many $M extra. Except 4 Byron, they don’t need a prove it year. If Byron = DLaw, it will cost many $M more. @mcbanning47
This is certainly a frequently asked question: Why do the Cowboys take so long to get these contract signed
Well, my theory – that I can’t really prove when teams aren’t quick to air their laundry with me – is that they are constantly being high-balled by the agents and players who know the Cowboys are a team that pays top dollar. The Cowboys have spent lavishly throughout Jerry Jones’ tenure and also have risen in the Forbes rankings every year. They are now far above every global franchise in revenue and valuation. Trust me: If you are making more money than Real Madrid, you are making some ridiculous money. This money has purchased helicopters, art, yachts, and everything you can imagine because, unlike Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Manchester United, the Cowboys have a fixed amount they can rededicate to players. So it is the best of both worlds for the Jones family. They have a fixed amount to spend, but an infinite amount to rake in. It is a beautiful thing.
The problem – which is a wonderful problem to have – is that the people who work for them live in this bubble and almost never take a hometown discount to play for them. Why work for cheap when the money could literally fill a swimming pool at the boss’ fourth house? My theory has always been that everyone loves trying to make the Jones family pay the top possible price for everything and let someone else take a discount, and this results in every player in Dallas thinking they should be the top-paid player at their position because they play that position for the Dallas freaking Cowboys. Salary cap or no, that is why Lawrence, Cooper, Prescott, Elliott and everyone else always seem to ask for the moon, and then the Cowboys have to fight to manage a full salary cap – even if the players are not quite worth the price tags relative to their colleagues in other markets. It is hard to come to work at the most money-rich workplace in the industry and not think you deserve a bit more than your boss tells you from his $250 million boat.
Who will the Stars sign in UFA? And who SHOULD they sign? @vr271234
Great question, and I think it is probably time to point out the obvious: The odds of Mats Zuccarello returning are declining with each passing day. Clearly, the sides exchanged numbers and wound up far apart, because there is no incentive for the Stars to let him get to July 1 without a deal if they are comfortable with his asking price. Their deal with Ben Bishop a few seasons back was easy to execute and done almost instantly, as he surely took a team-friendly deal to demonstrate how he wanted to be in Dallas. Now, a goaltender is different than a wing because there is only one No. 1 goalie in each city, and if 20-25 teams always have their top guy, Bishop’s options were limited. But Zuccarello has 30 possibilities who all need four scoring wingers, and this is a pretty weak free-agency class. There is every reason to believe he can just let the auction come to him on July 1 and go where the cash is for his first real sniff at free agency. The Stars might assume he is gone and make other plans. If they do, maybe they circle back and try to take a run at another high-end target like Matt Duchene or Artemi Panarin. I am not holding my breath, and I will assume they are looking at the trade options with so many teams up against the cap, but we shall see. I know they want to be aggressive and feel their window is now. If they don’t spend their money on Zuccarello, I suspect they won’t leave empty-handed this summer.
Was Joey a legitimate MVP candidate before he got injured? @pounder888
That’s a good question, and we are all happy his return is imminent. Joey Gallo put on a show in the first two months of 2019 and that was awesome, and I feel weird having a June 1 MVP discussion – especially for players who emerged and found a new level recently. Gallo’s biggest obstacle was to maintain his new approach rather than to worry about measuring up to the AL MVP race, but it was certainly a fun discussion while it lasted based on a player leading the league in OPS and playing a reasonable center field in the process. I’m looking forward to seeing him again, now.
Help my sports soul. Knowing what we know about injuries and matchups, did the Stars have enough to beat San Jose and Boston? In other words, were we mere inches away from a Stanley Cup? @AreAyEye
I would rest easy and suggest that while the Stars had a nice run, it was not their year. I don’t like the transitive property premise of sports in these settings, and I certainly don’t think the Blues’ Stanley Cup victory means that had the Stars won Game 7 in St Louis, they would have won the Cup, too. Maybe. I can’t rule it out, but there were too many holes this season with too many young players and not enough depth for me to suggest this team had a Cup in them. They need another scorer and another top-four defenseman and, honestly, another year of experience for Hintz, Heiskanen and the kids. I like their future, but I don’t think we can suggest they were almost champions this season.
Finally, this response from our Cowboys 19 for ’19 list….
Great memories attached to every name. The current Cowboys DL could learn from watching Randy White. He was will-to-win personified. My favourite highlight is the week 8 1984 sack and forced fumble on Ken Stabler at the N.O.Saints 1 yard line with 3 minutes left and Dallas trailing the Saints 20-27. Jim Jeffcoat recovered the fumble in the end zone and Rafel Septien tied it up with the extra point then won it in overtime. The Saints had never beaten the Cowboys in Dallas at that point in their history and #54 did all in his power to keep the streak alive. – Phillip N.
As a champion sports nerd, I collect old games on a massive hard drive. I happen to have this game, and it is a ridiculous game indeed. If someone is going to tell me their favorite Randy White play and I can go get it to show you what he is talking about, I am going to do that. Dallas entered the fourth quarter down 27-6 to New Orleans on Monday Night Football in 1984. They needed a play from Randy White and he provided it. This is 3rd and 18 and the Saints think they should try a pass, because if they punt it back to the Cowboys, they risk the game being tied up.
Welp, the game is now tied up.
Here is White against LG Louis Oubre on the left of the screen. God bless Louis, but this is just not his best career snap against the Manster. Jeffcoat recovers the ball in the end zone, the game was tied at 27-27 and Rafael Septien won it in overtime 35 years ago.
You don’t want to be isolated against Randy White on 3rd-and-18 with the game on the line.
Have a great weekend!