3 worst moves of the Dallas Cowboys 2022 offseason

The Dallas Cowboys have had quite an interesting offseason. They lost a good amount of longstanding and talented veteran players and decided to mostly stay in-house with new contracts. Some people feel that the nine 2022 NFL Draft class additions will be enough to make up for what was lost. Others, even the top NFL analysts, feel the Cowboys had one of the worst offseasons in the league.

From having to place Dalton Schultz on the franchise tag after Blake Jarwin’s injury update to only getting a fifth-round pick for WR1 Amari Cooper, it’s been a bumpy ride. While there were certainly some positive moves made this offseason, let’s take a look at three of the more questionable choices made by the Cowboys’ front office.

The 3 most questionable offseason moves of the Dallas Cowboys 2022 offseason

3. Cutting La’el Collins with no backup plan in place

In a league where finding talented offensive linemen is pretty rare, La’el Collins was widely known as one of the best. Although talks and rumors about roster cuts were mostly about Amari Cooper and DeMarcus Lawrence in February and the beginning of March, on March 17, NFL’s Tom Pelissero reported that the team was considering getting rid of the OT as a post-June 1 cut.

Financially, this decision made sense. By designating him as a post-June 1 cut, the team (who started the offseason as the third worst in terms of cap space) gained $10 million in cap money. However, the sheer fact that the Cincinnati Bengals waited approximately two minutes to call Collins after hearing this rumor should show people just how valuable Collins is in this league. He ranked fifth among all tackles in PFF grade since 2019.

The real problem here is that the Cowboys had no real plan to replace him. Instead of scouring the free-agent market to replace a big void in the offensive line, the front office signed zero available linemen and waited for the draft to address the offensive line. And while no one wanted to see penalty-prone Connor Williams stick around and cause more lost yards, the reality was that the Cowboys had lost two starters in a position group that was already weak and had no answers.

While people are very excited about first-round pick Tyler Smith, the reality is that he is a rookie and no one knows how he will perform in the NFL. The other part about Smith is that we do know that he was a penalty machine at Tulsa which doesn’t really help the Cowboys at all. He may be the big, mauler type of player Dallas wanted, but is it wise to count on a young rookie with zero NFL experience to fill your offensive line?

The position group is now very thin and has very little experience in its depth chart. For a team that loves to run the ball and needs to keep its quarterback upright, this could be a huge problem.