Dallas Cowboys Offseason: Jerry Jones Making Risky Super Bowl Play
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is no stranger to the spotlight. He’s always up to something, but lately, he’s been busy putting together — gasp — a Super Bowl contender.
The Cowboys were one of the best teams in the NFL last year, and they took a pretty interesting approach to this offseason. With one of the best offensive lines in the NFL already, the Cowboys fortified their unit by picking up guard/tackle La’El Collins after the draft, but that was after selecting Florida tackle Chaz Green in the third round.
Collins was expected to be a first round — probably top 20 — selection prior to going undrafted due to his potential involvement in or knowledge of the murder of his pregnant ex-girlfriend. The situation was scary enough as it is, so NFL teams didn’t touch Collins until after the draft when he set up a visit with the Cowboys and signed almost immediately.
According to us NFL Draft folk, getting Collins was probably the biggest coup of the draft for the Cowboys, but even that’s arguable. The Cowboys managed to come away from the second round of the draft with Nebraska pass rusher Randy Gregory, a player who had been projected a year ago at this time as a potential number one overall pick.
Gregory’s playing weight an issue, he dropped to the second round primarily because of a failed drug test at the scouting combine.
In the first round of the draft, the Cowboys took defensive back Byron Jones, whose athleticism should allow him plenty of playing time early on as a nickel corner/safety for Dallas.
As I have previously written, the Cowboys managed to somehow get three first round graded players with only one first round pick. Unfortunately for a team like the Jacksonville Jaguars, they saw first rounder (3rd overall pick) Dante Fowler Jr. go down on the first weekend of rookie OTAs with a torn ACL.
That’s beside the point, but the Cowboys cashed in on ‘value’ all over the draft and even outside of the draft with their rookie class. It’s going to be a really interesting training camp from that perspective, but Dallas made some other really intriguing moves this offseason.
Dallas signed Greg Hardy to a contract despite knowing he’d probably get suspended, but the former Carolina Panthers pass rusher had a 10-game suspension reduced to four games. The Cowboys from a football perspective lucked out there, though some are still upset over the lack of ‘justice’ served to Hardy by the NFL for his off-field antics.
At any rate, Hardy will be on the field sooner rather than later for the Cowboys, and he’ll join the team around the same time as inside linebacker Rolando McClain, who joined the Cowboys last season and was a revelation in this defense. McClain was one of the best players on an overachieving defense last season and looked like the player the Raiders had drafted him to be back in 2009.
McClain, however, was suspended four games to start the season for violating the league’s substance abuse policy.
The crescendo to the Cowboys’ moves this offseason was re-signing franchise player and star receiver Dez Bryant just prior to the July 15th deadline, giving him a 5-year contract worth $70 million and $45 million guaranteed.
Bryant’s contract is the 2nd richest among receivers in the NFL, but the Cowboys might have taken a pretty big leap of faith with that significant financial investment. Coming into the NFL, Bryant had some character concerns that pushed him out of the top 10 of the draft and into the bottom 10 picks of the first round in 2010.
Bryant has always been incredibly outspoken, and even threatened the Cowboys and their fans on Twitter that he would hold out into the season if he didn’t receive long-term financial stability. Whatever he did or said worked, and the Cowboys paid up, but Bryant was suspended from the Oklahoma State football team in 2009 and there was a video that surfaced in the last year of an incident involving Bryant at a Wal Mart.
It’s all very troubling to a certain degree, but what do a lot of these guys have in common?
I’m pretty sure you could tell, but throughout the moves made this offseason by Dallas is the common thread of off-field concern.
They are all to different degrees, but Jerry Jones has invested millions upon millions of dollars to put together this roster, hoping for a Super Bowl contender, and pleading to the football gods for nothing to happen off the field that is going to cost the team.
The players haven’t held up their end of the bargain already with Hardy and McClain being suspended, but getting Bryant under contract is some serious positive momentum that this offense can take into the season.
Losing DeMarco Murray — to a division rival, no less — hurts this team significantly but the offensive line should be able to open up holes for literally any running back they have back there, even if it is Darren McFadden (I kid, I kid…).
One thing is certain — Jerry Jones is going all-in this offseason, and he’s willing to make a lot of bold moves to get his Cowboys back in the winner’s circle.
It’s a bold strategy, we’ll see if it pays off for him…