The Landry Hat » cortland finnegan

2012 Cowboys Free Agency: Analyzing Early Signings and Roster Decisions

Brad Austin — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 12:00:22 +0000

With a mere two days of 2012 NFL Free Agency in the bag, the numerous, impacting moves and maneuvers have come at a frenzied pace. For the Dallas Cowboys most of this offseason involved discussions of Carl Nicks, Cortland Finnegan, and Brandon Carr as must-get guys. It seemed all along that one of these three high-profile players had to dawn the silver and blue to provide a new optimism in Dallas after much hard luck of late. With Nicks signing an unprecedented contract for an offensive guard in Tampa Bay and Finnegan quickly secured in St. Louis, the Cowboys impressively finished off talks with Brandon Carr and secured the imperative services of the stingy defender. It would have been a real blow to the Cowboys faithful if Carr had slipped by. First losing Nnamdi Asomugha to the rival Eagles in 2011 and then just missing on Carr in 2012, one can only imagine how bitter that outcome was going to taste for Cowboys loyalists. Fortunately Jerry Jones never allowed much doubt and locked up his new high performance race Carr with a 5-year lease to replace the sputtering Terence Newman.

Moving on, let’s take a look at some of the major decisions and transactions made so far in free agency directly affecting the Dallas Cowboys. Be aware the details and on goings of free agency and the draft are very fluid now and changing by the moment. If transactions have altered or occurred beyond the moves discussed below, don’t kill the messenger. Also, all moves won’t be discussed, just several major ones that directly involve the Cowboys. We’ll start off with analyzing and grading the new additions Dallas has made to the roster thus far and proceed from there.

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So it Begins… Dallas Cowboys Free Agency Headlines

Jonathan Barger — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:00:32 +0000

My phone died yesterday. Twitter blew it up with all the players visiting teams and Redskin fans crying about how myself and fellow Landry Hat writer Mark Contreras believe that Redskins are still going to be at the Bottom of the Food Chain (If you didn’t read our articles, you can find them here and here).
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QUICK OUT: Dallas Cowboys’ After-Tag Options

Todd Toombs — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:00:25 +0000

Anyone that follows the NFL and wasn’t living under a rock somewhere already knows that the deadline for placing a club’s “franchise tag” on an unrestricted free agent has come and gone. It’s complicated but without going into all the mind-numbing details the “capologists” among us drool over, the franchise tag essentially allows a club to retain the rights to their free agent player for one more year by agreeing to tender an offer for what is the average of the top 5 salaries for that position in the league over the last 5 years. I know there is a lot more to it than that, but this is supposed to be light reading and that definition suits our purpose here.

Mandatory Credit: Jim O

Much has already been written about which free agents the Cowboys should go after, but now that the dust has settled, let’s look at which of those free agents are still available and might be realistic targets for the team beginning March 13th when the new league year actually starts and players can be signed. Of course, most if not all of these players may now be financially out of reach for Dallas since they decided to franchise their own Anthony Spencer eating up almost $9 million of what is reportedly around $20 million of available cap space this year. But, for sake of argument, here is the wish list of players still on the market. (more…)