Who should the Dallas Cowboys keep: Amari Cooper or Byron Jones?

The Case for Byron Jones

To be fair, most fans like Byron Jones and wants to keep him in Dallas. They all concede that he’s by far the best defensive back on the team. They even praise him for his coverage skills, although he lacks interceptions. And guess what? They still want Jones to return for the right price…and that’s the problem/argument with Jones.

Jones knows his worth on the open market and it starts in the $14 million and up….yeah now you see what I’m talking about.

Jones has covered the best wideouts in the game to almost a perfection. In 2019, only 53.1 percent of passes was completed against him, and that speaks volumes.  Staff writer Dan Ruppert wrote an article explaining the elite level of Jones as a corner.

Dan explains how Jones’ 53.1 completion percentage is among the best corners in league-the New England Patriots Stephon Gilmore had a 50.5 percent against him and Pittsburgh Steelers Joe Haden had 53.7 percent against him. The only knock on Jones is he has only two career interceptions, and fans and critics alike believe interceptions are the Holy Grail of being a defensive back.

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And because of a lack of interceptions, fans believe Jones should be paid based off of the amount of interceptions rather than as elite corner with a low completion rate. Heck, safety Jeff Heath has more interceptions than Jones, but is Heath better than Jones? Hell, no! See, having interceptions doesn’t necessarily make you an elite corner, and nor does it tell the entire story.

All I know is that Jones is one hell of a corner and Dallas needs him badly because everyone else in the secondary plays mediocre (except for Jourdan Lewis) or inconsistent. Jones takes away the opposing teams best receivers. What Jones need more than interceptions is a consistent pass rush that enables him to get more interceptions, but that’s a different topic for a different day.

The best case scenario is for Dallas is for the new CBA (collective bargain agreement) to get approved. A new CBA allows Dallas to sign Dak to a long term contract, and then Dallas will be in a great position to sign Coop and Jones.

If that happens, then Jerry and Stephen will have their cake and can eat it, too. That means nobody is walking-except to the bank to cash those big checks.

Leave your comments below and tell us which player you’ll rather have.