Why are the Dallas Cowboys so horrible in free agency?

The phenomenon of failure in free agency is not new for the Dallas Cowboys. Here is a look at their recent forays and an explanation as to why they fail.

Somehow, somewhere, a lie was born that many Dallas Cowboys fans have been told and now believe. This lie revolves around free agency and how it is supposed to be used.

Many Cowboys fans truly believe that spending money in free agency is a bad thing. The believe that the model that Dallas Cowboys employ, that of not going after big fish but making small moves is the way to go.

This lie is augmented with the fallacy that the only way to build a good team is to draft good players and then re-sign them. Unfortunately, that’s just not the case.

It is true that the best way to build a team is through the draft. The draft is a great way to build your core as you usually get 3-4 years of talented players at low cost.

The draft, alone, however, will not get teams to the promised land. Free agency is necessary to fill in voids. No team hits on every draft pick. Besides, there is usually only 7-8 picks every year and a 46-man game day roster to fill. The math alone does not work.

The Dallas Cowboys philosophy has been to lean (heavily) on the draft and, for the most part, it has worked. Dallas has 48 games over the past five years. That puts them in the upper echelon of NFL teams during the regular season.

Their playoff success, however, has not matched up with that stellar record. Part of that reason has been the comically bad way they view and use free agency to obtain talent.

Since 2014, the Dallas Cowboys have signed 37 free agents that played for a different team the previous year. Five of those contracts were worth more than $10M total. Here were those five deals:

2014: Henry Melton – four years, $27.5M
2015: Greg Hardy – one year, $11.3M
2016: Cedric Thornton – four years, $17M
2017: Nolan Carroll – three years, $10M
2018: Allen Hurns – two years, $12M

Not one of those players were on the team for more than the one year they became Cowboys. Carroll didn’t even play three games. Hurns may or may not be on the team in 2019 as he recovers from a gruesome injury sustained in the 2018 Wild Card round of the playoffs.

Cowboys fans are also told that Dallas puts on a priority on re-signing their own free agents. The philosophy being that they know their own guys better than anyone, so it’s supposedly lesser of a risk. That, too, is false.

Dallas has re-signed 21 of their own free agents in this same time span. Most of these deals have been fairly low-budget moves with a third being for less than a million dollars and just one year. The ones they have chosen to spend the “big” money on, however, have been just as bad as the above.

2016: James Hanna – three years, $8.25M. Hanna played only year of the three, catching just four balls for 88 yards and a touchdown in 2017. He’s now out of the league.

2017: Terrance Williams – four years, $17M. Williams never caught another touchdown after signing this deal. In two years, he played just 16 games, catching 55 balls for 586 yards. He was cut earlier this year.

2019: Cameron Fleming (two years, $8.5M) / Jamize Olawale (three years, $5.4M). Fleming will get $4.25M this season however the hope is he never has to play as he is the swing tackle. Olawale was given almost $3M guaranteed because he’s a good special teams player. Too bad he plays a near obsolete position on offense and rarely sees the field unless it’s on punts or kickoffs.

Looking back at the 37 street free agents and 21 home town signings, Dallas really only hit on nine total. That’s a success rate of 16 percent.

So, how can be it so bad? The main reason is because the Dallas Cowboys try to sign free agents that have talent but are coming off of injury-plagued seasons. They are following this path again in 2019.

On Monday, they signed defensive Kerry Hyder from the Detroit Lions. Hyder missed all of 2017 with a torn Achilles and only played in seven games last season, picking up one sack. They also have meetings scheduled this week with receiver Randall Cobb, defensive end Malik McDowell and safety Eric Berry.

Cobb played in just nine games last year. McDowell has never played since being drafted in 2017 due to an ATV accident shortly after the draft. Berry has played in three games over the last two years due to complications from a torn Achilles in the season opener of 2017.

It is a recipe for disaster that this organization replays over and over again. When all you focus on is bargains or low end filler moves, it is impossible for your team to take the next level without a supreme amount of luck. Until this philosophy changes, it is hard to see how the Dallas Cowboys will ever take that next step.