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By Bob Sturm 2h ago
I’ve been asked an awful lot of questions about the Dallas Cowboys organization over the years, and one that comes up quite a bit is “Who is the most underrated Cowboys player you have covered?”
This is probably a good story idea for another day, because many fine players come to mind, and almost every last one of them is on the defense. Most football fans are pretty obsessed with offense and the stars that have come through here on that side of the ball. In Dallas, it almost seems amplified even further as, in the last 30 years of Cowboys football, it is pretty safe to say that eight or nine of the 10 most popular Cowboys since 1990 are offensive players. Troy, Emmitt, Michael, Romo, Witten, Dez, Dak and Zeke are all easily more popular and highly rated than almost anyone else who is either a lineman or a defender.
Meanwhile, DeMarcus Ware is probably the surest-fire Hall of Famer from the last 20 years (Zack Martin and Tyron Smtih might have something to say about that eventually), but he somehow lacks local fame and adoration on the level of those on that previous list.
Ware is phenomenal, and his career will be well-remembered. Perhaps a tier down from him, though, is my ultimate answer to the most underrated Cowboy of my time: Terence Newman.
In fact, I must underrate him given I still have to check the spelling of his first name (there are many ways to spell “Terence,” evidently). But he spent nine seasons as a Cowboy and most of them were excellent.
Newman was a top-five pick in the 2003 draft, so he was supposed to be a phenomenal player, but he generally delivered on both good Cowboys teams and bad. He was the first pick of the Bill Parcells era and lasted until the end of Jason Garrett’s second season. Those Cowboys teams had some real strong defenses during that time, and a big part of it was Newman’s ability to mitigate the damage of opponents’ top receivers. He went to a few Pro Bowls and helped lead the secondary, but it does seem that his memory here is largely perceived as “disappointing.”
Despite that perception, he holds a real distinction in recent Cowboys team-building. Of all of the defensive backs they have taken with top-100 picks, he is the only one to receive a second contract of note from the Cowboys.
Cowboys DB Top 100 Picks, 2003-2020
| YEAR▲ | RND | PICK | PLAYER | POS | DRAGE | PB | ST | CARAV | G | INT | SK | COLLEGE/UNIV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | 1 | 5 |  Terence Newman | DB | 25 | 2 | 13 | 71 | 221 | 42 | 2 | Kansas St. |
| 2008 | 1 | 25 |  Mike Jenkins | DB | 23 | 1 | 4 | 27 | 101 | 10 | South Florida | |
| 2012 | 1 | 6 |  Morris Claiborne | DB | 22 | 0 | 4 | 25 | 85 | 7 | LSU | |
| 2013 | 3 | 80 |  J.J. Wilcox | DB | 22 | 0 | 2 | 16 | 77 | 6 | Georgia Southern | |
| 2015 | 1 | 27 |  Byron Jones | CB | 22 | 1 | 4 | 30 | 79 | 2 | Connecticut | |
| 2017 | 3 | 92 |  Jourdan Lewis | CB | 22 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 46 | 4 | 4 | Michigan |
| 2017 | 2 | 60 |  Chidobe Awuzie | CB | 22 | 0 | 2 | 14 | 41 | 3 | Colorado | |
| 2020 | 2 | 51 |  Trevon Diggs | CB | 0 | 0 | Alabama |
That is a real problem, of course, because nobody should ever draft players for the next four years. It should always be for the meat of their career’s prime. Four years often end before a player’s 26th birthday, which is the exact opposite of claiming one’s prime. Of course, in Newman’s case, he was much older when awarded his second deal (nearly 30!) but would also play at a fine level until he was nearly 40. His longevity is a true outlier.
And, in Dallas, so is his tenure. When Newman’s rookie deal was set to expire, he signed a huge extension for six years and $50 million on May 20, 2008, just four months before he turned 30. He played through four years of that deal.
Since then, the reports are quite poor in the secondary:
2008 – 1st round – No. 25 overall – CB Mike Jenkins
Jenkins certainly had a few nice moments in his Dallas career, but when we discuss these cases, it is pretty important to distinguish the differences between Jenkins and Morris Claiborne from someone like Byron Jones. The first two played so far below expectations that by the time the thought of negotiations might occur, the front office gave the impression that there was no chance they’d interested in the concept – not for market value or really any price. In Jenkins’ case, he made a number of poor decisions and even the dreaded business decisions when he would pass up physical plays for body preservation, which signals a poor investment. After a solid 2009 season, things went downhill enough that by 2011, there were talks of a trade more often than any belief that there was a future for Jenkins in Dallas. After Wade Phillips left, the Mike Jenkins era had very few advocates, and that was that. He was done in Dallas without a real offer being made from either side, I don’t believe.
2012 – First Round – No. 6 overall – CB Morris Claiborne
Much like Mike Jenkins, Claiborne was the product of a trade up, which makes the ultimate result a massive disappointment. Introduced to us as “the most talented DB since Deion Sanders” by Jerry Jones on draft weekend, the bar was as high as it gets for a guy that cost Dallas’ first- and second-round picks. He was basically the sign the team wouldn’t be keeping Mike Jenkins around, either, because they just drafted a much better version of him (along with signing Brandon Carr). Claiborne was a decent player for Dallas, but the injuries came much more often than the interceptions – he never played close to a full season after his rookie year – and by his fourth season, there was almost no discussion of an extension. Rather, Dallas declined the fifth-year option on his rookie deal and offered him a much smaller version to complete his five years on a pay cut.
2013 – Third Round – No. 80 overall – S JJ Wilcox
With each player, we must adjust expectations to coincide with the cost, and the expectation for a third-round safety is far below that of a player taken sixth overall. That said, Wilcox did break in for 2014 and 2015 with a chance to secure a future in Dallas at a position they don’t often invest in too much, only to average a missed tackle per game for two consecutive seasons, which causes all sorts of issues with the term “safety.” Sometime in the Barry Church, Jeff Heath, Byron Jones and ultimately Xavier Woods rotation, Wilcox faded into a special-teams contributor (read: an expensive version of Kavon Frazier) and certainly was not brought back after his initial, bigger deal ended.
2015 – First Round – No. 27 overall – CB/S Byron Jones
Bryon is certainly the player with the best actual on-field performance in a Cowboys uniform since Newman. There is no doubt that when it comes to the simple discussion of whether or not he is doing his job at a very high level, he often did. From tying up big tight ends as a rookie to helping solve the safety dilemma in 2016-2017 and then back to the corner spot in 2018-2019 with performances that paved the way toward becoming the owner of the biggest cornerback contract in NFL history in Miami (five years, $82.5 million), Byron delivered. He was a fine player and a better man off the field, it seemed, and everything you want in a cornerstone player. But the Cowboys feared a lack of meaningful splash plays that flipped games and thus perhaps rightfully considered Jones to be a fringe top-10 corner in the league versus someone who sets the pay scale at the position. Once his side began seeking very-top-of-the-market money, Dallas walked away. In some ways, it is a similar discussion to the Dak Prescott talk, save for the idea that there is no way the Cowboys would allow Prescott to go to free agency to see the money that Byron was able to capture. With that in mind, he is now paid like peak Deion Sanders and will probably not get there, but the Dolphins have a duo now that is very formidable when you add him to Baylor’s Xavien Howard.
That makes for a pretty dubious list over 15 years, in which the Cowboys seem to have gone 0-for-5 in their top DB picks being marriage material following the conclusion of their rookie deals. Did the Cowboys misevaluate? Yes, as Jenkins, Claiborne and Wilcox must all be called much poorer versions of what Dallas thought they were getting. Did they misplay their hand with an extension? Probably with Byron Jones, but that is speculative. Either way, you could argue that all four of the deals were not what you dream of when you want a high pick to hit his 30th birthday as a pillar of the organization.
Since Newman, none have been kept for close to a decade. Now we near the end of the road with Chidobe Awuzie and Jourdan Lewis (not to mention Xavier Woods), who all have 2020 left to go and might all be thrown back into the player pool. So up steps Trevon Diggs in this draft and a fresh four years of leash with Tulsa’s Reggie Robinson in Round 4. It is good to replenish the young talent, but it is much better to establish some quality continuity, which is something the Cowboys haven’t done in the defensive backfield in ages.
Time to try again, it appears. For the time being, Terence Newman won’t be forgotten anytime soon.
