The Continued Demise of the Dallas Cowboys

Ladies and Gentlemen of the sports world, I find myself perplexed. Perplexed as to how exactly it is that the Dallas Cowboys, in desperate need of Safety and Offensive Line help, find themselves essentially neutered during this NFL Free Agency period. While much has been made of the absolute disaster that is the NY Jets salary cap situation, it seems that the Dallas Cowboys are in an only slightly less precarious position. Granted the Cowboys are facing a preposterous $5 million penalty for exceeding a nonexistent salary cap in the 2010-2011 season (lets not even broach the subject of how owner's managed collude and impose a cap without repercussion from the NFLPA, but I cant quite grasp how exactly it is that they are this hard against the cap given their roster. If Dallas were the 49ers I would be more apt to understand. After all the 49ers roster is littered with Pro Bowl and All Pro caliber players all of whom must be paid, Dallas however does not have a roster of such compliment.

When you look at the Cowboys roster it is indeed a talented one. However many of those talented players are still under their rookie (read inexpensive) contracts, Sean Lee, Bruce Carter, & Dez Bryant to name a few. With so many young impact players the only reasonable explanation for why Dallas has essentially no cap space is that they are grossly overpaying the veterans on the roster. Many would point to Tony Romo's $16+ million salary for this upcoming season as one such instance but I would argue that while Tony may indeed seem overpaid, the cap penalty for this season is due to Dallas' penchant for restructuring contracts as opposed to signing Tony to a lucrative deal. Let us remember that Romo has played 4 of the 6 years on the 6 yr/ $67 million contract in question on a base salary of less than $1 million dollars due to those restructurings. As such, anyone of the opinion that Romo should "take one for the team" needs to realize that he already has...on 4 separate occasions...and all he got for his trouble was an Offensive line that allowed him to get sacked 36 times last year.

Its not so much that the Jones family restructures contracts, its that they don't improve the roster when they do. Take the Anthony Spencer/Victor Butler decision for example. Yes, Spencer is coming off his best season with 11.5 sacks and 95 tackles but that was in his SIXTH NFL season not to mention a contract year. In his previous 5 NFL seasons Spencer had accounted for a total of 21.5 sacks. Now that sounds like an impressive number until you realize 21.5 sacks in 5 years is a paltry 4.3 average per year or in Spencer's case .4 sacks per start as a 3-4 OLB. There are Inside or Middle Linebackers with a better sack per start ratio than Spencer yet Dallas has seen fit to franchise him twice. By comparison, Victor Butler (whom Dallas seems willing to let walk) has 11 sacks in 4 years even though he has only started 2 games in that time span. I am not saying that Butler is a better player than Spencer (although that could turn out to be the case), I'm only saying that Spencer's production doesn't meet the production you would expect from someone being paid $10.63 million for a season.

A less grievous offense is the Jason Witten contract. Now I love Witten's game & work ethic and he's probably been the most consistent Cowboy during his tenure with the team, but I seriously doubt you can find anyone who believes he should have a higher average salary ($7.2 million) than Rob Gronkowski ($6.9 million)

Decisions such as this are why Dallas finds itself in the position of spectator as the deepest free agent pool of Offensive Lineman in seemingly a decade signs elsewhere while Dallas watches replays of Romo running for his life time after time behind a porous O-Line. The inability to pursue quality O-linemen in free agency would be of minimal concern considering the number of Blue Chip prospects available in the Draft, but Dallas also has a need at Safety and only one pick to utilize in the first round. Poor financial decisions mean the Cowboys find themselves in a position to choose between a top flight safety & an upgrade at O-Line as opposed to being able to acquire both. The problem is, Dallas hasn't exactly shown a penchant for making quality decisions of late.

Grizzlies trade Rudy Gay, OKC Rejoices

Upon hearing of last nights 3 team trade involving Rudy Gay the Oklahoma City Thunder may have very well cracked a bit of a smile. Over the last two years the Grizzlies have taken the Thunder to the limit in two highly intense & entertaining playoff series. Now granted while the Thunder managed to prevail in both of those series no one can deny that the Grizzlies had the pieces to challenge them for 7 games both then & if necessary this year as well. However, that was before yesterday. Yesterday afternoon reports began to surface that the rumored trade of Rudy Gay to Toronto had indeed taken place. While this trade was expected it still leaves one to believe that Memphis took this action from a monetary perspective as opposed to a competitive one. Yes, the Grizzlies receive some adequate pieces but none of those piece have the scoring punch of Gay individually or cumulatively for that matter. Ed Davis won't supplant Zach Randolph in the starting lineup so one can assume that his acquisition is a look to the future as Randolph is 31 years old. Even still, unless Davis' quality of play (9.7 ppg, 6.7 rpg) drastically improves he wont be a cornerstone of the franchise in years to come. Tayshaun Prince on the other hand is a very intriguing piece. Most reports indicate he'd grown restless with the habitual losing in Detroit but Prince maintains his reputation as one of the leagues most stingy perimeter defenders which could come in handy during the playoffs against the likes of Durant, Harden, & Curry to name a few. Again however, Prince can't hope to replace Gay's scoring ability (17+ ppg) or flair for momentum changing plays offensively. The bottom line is that while Memphis remains a quality team without Gay, they lose the scoring threat on the perimeter a team needs to contend for a championship. For that matter, they no longer have the personnel to match up with Oklahoma City which means the Thunder are one series closer to a return trip to the finals.