Lesson Of DeMarcus Ware: Trust This Dallas Cowboys Front Office

The reliable Todd Archer’s post at ESPN citing franchise great DeMarcus Ware as “strictly” a cap casualty ignores a prescient piece of personnel work by the Dallas Cowboys front office in the run up to 2014 free agency. The Cowboys cut Ware more for his production than his cap space, and his 2014 season proved them right.

In truth, Dallas cut Ware a season too late. All the signs to cut Ware were evident in 2012. Ware finished that season with 11.5 sacks, but only 2.5 of those came in the second half of the season. Ware had logged 5.5 sacks in December alone a season before, but at 30 years old in his eighth season, the 16-game grind left him with little in the tank for the money month in 2012.

If Ware was still a 15-sack guy capable of elite December production, he would have been a Cowboy in 2014.

Remember his Week 17 performance at Washington? His toughness was unmatched, playing with essentially one arm, but the Redskins ran left all night. Right down the All Pro’s throat. And when it was done they had notched 274 yards on the ground and a division title.

Ware finished the day with one tackle and no sacks. The week before, in an important overtime loss at home to New Orleans, Ware had the same stat line – one tackle, no sacks.

In 2013 Dallas brought him back hoping a change of position might also change Ware’s late-season production. One understands the gamble – Ware is a prototypical Right Kinda Guy. Physically and mentally tough. Loves the game – it’s important to him. Plays hard. Plays hurt. Great teammate. A leader. Add to those qualities an All Pro talent at a cornerstone position and a franchise icon, and it’s easy to justify the risk.

Predictably, the gamble failed. Ware again started strong – four sacks in his first three games – but logged only two sacks in the second half of the season. Ware’s body was breaking down. As good as he was to start the year, he couldn’t be counted on for the long, hard slog of a 16-game NFL season.

When the Cowboys cut him the day before free agency in the 2014 offseason, the Denver Broncos made him a Day 1 signing for three years and $30 million. Folks jeered Dallas GM Jerry Jones, lauded Denver GM John Elway, and predicted a resurgence for Ware.

But 2014 was more of the same. Ware had eight sacks in his first eight games as a Bronco, and two sacks in his last eight games. He played 55 snaps in Denver’s humiliating 24-13 Divisional Round playoff loss at home to Indianapolis: Four tackles, no sacks. And Colts quarterback Andrew Luck threw the ball 43 times.

Ware would have counted over $15 million against the cap had he remained with the Cowboys in 2014. No doubt his cap figure played a role in his release, but to count him among “a number of personnel decisions based strictly on the cap” is absurd. If Ware was still a 15-sack guy capable of elite December production, he would have been a Cowboy in 2014.

Those days are past Ware, and the Cowboys front office saw it coming. That $15 million in cap space would have bought two November sacks, and zero December sacks in 2014. When the Cowboys signed Jeremy Mincey to replace Ware, the move was widely panned as “cost cutting.”

Mincey had only six sacks in 2014, but five of them came in the second half of the season. Mincey added two more in postseason play, grading out as ProFootballFocus.com’s top 4-3 defensive end in the 2014 playoffs.

This Dallas front office has gotten a whole lot better at evaluating its own talent, and bringing in undervalued free agents who fit the team’s schemes. Cowboys fans are right to trust the moves this group will make in the run up to the 2015 season. Still don’t believe it? Ask Elway and the Broncos.

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