Dallas Cowboys: April Fools or Springtime Savvy?

Dallas Cowboys: Springtime Savvy

While it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of free agency, signing players for the sake of signing players isn’t always a great thing. And offseason “winners” are rarely regular season winners. Timo Riske at Pro Football Focus did a piece on this a week ago showing that signing outside free agent players notoriously disappoints. Which is why letting Robert Quinn leave was wise and it’s why we should temper expectations for Gerald McCoy.

Just because we see the Eagles upgrading all over their roster, doesn’t mean it’s all destined to work out. They’ve invested big, which means if it doesn’t turn out, it’s going to hurt big. And again, players who switch team typically regress.

The Dallas Cowboys, on the other hand, are doing what they always do and investing in “value” pieces that may have a lower reward, but they also hold considerably less risk given their cost.

The Cowboys like to use free agency to patch holes and eliminate needs. This serves them in the draft because they have the ability to pick the best player available rather than focus on a position of need (although they’ve deviated from this lately).

They’re also tremendous bargain hunters late in free agency. They keep the powder dry so they can attack any bargains that slip through the cracks. Each day that goes by the price is essentially dropping. Looking at the market we can see there are still some pretty decent players out there: Jadeveon Clowney, Mike Daniels, Logan Ryan, Prince Amukamara, and Everson Griffen could all be useful to Dallas.

And if that doesn’t work out, the Dallas Cowboys are notoriously great springtime traders. Last season Dallas shipped a 6th rounder for Robert Quinn. The year before they sent another Day 3 pick for Tavon Austin. Not only did they get good production from those players, but they stand to recoup the cost (with interest added) through compensatory picks. Keep in mind, Quinn’s expected to bring them back a 4th round comp pick next year.

All of these options are still in play for the Dallas Cowboys to improve this spring. All of these are the usual avenues of roster building for Dallas and all have proven to be pretty darn successful.