Dallas Cowboys and free agency are like oil and water
By Tyrone Starr
With a recent history of epic failure in free agency, it may be best for the Dallas Cowboys to once again sit out this portion of the offseason.
For the 32 teams in the National Football League, free agency is a key time of year. It’s an opportunity, prior to the draft, to better your team.
Some teams treat this period like kids in a candy store. Others use it wisely and make shrewd signings that help them improve. Then, there’s the Dallas Cowboys.
The Dallas Cowboys handle free agency about as well as Michael Scott did the being a boss of Dunder Mifflin.
Not only do they fail miserably year after year, they almost have a palpable disdain for this time of the football year. The last “major” signing of a free agent six years ago. Most people would say that decision is what prompted their extremely myopic views of free agency.
The truth is, while signing Brandon Carr for $50M did not work out how they hoped, it wasn’t that bad either. Carr wore a Cowboys uniform for the entirety of his contract. He suited up for all 16 games every single year. Carr was consistent. He was barely above average.
Did he deserve $50M? No.
Should Carr be used as the poster boy for taking a hard pass on free agency? A sort of cautionary tale? Absolutely not.
To be fair, the Cowboys and their cap management has not been helpful to any forays into free agency. For the better part of this decade, Dallas has had to dig itself out of some cap “hell.”
Still, to say that Dallas has been atrocious at acquiring talent on the open market would be kind.
I went back and looked at every free agent signing since 2013. The fact that I still was able to write this article and not drink myself into oblivion is admirable.