Over the summer I asked “Is this a serious franchise?” of the Dallas Cowboys. We already knew it was not, but the Micah Parsons trade should have eliminated any remaining doubt for those without brain worms. If you are a fan of the Cowboys, just take the season off. Probably a lot more after that. It’s just better for your mental health, and your wallet. Because your wallet is all that Jerry Jones cares about.
The Cowboys continue to feed the notion that the Jones family uses the Cowboys as little more than a cash printing machine. Do they have low liquidity in their other assets and need the cash flow? Or do the Jones treat the Cowboys profits as a blend of a certificate of deposit and a money market account where they know they have a predictable rate of return with no withdrawal penalties? Whatever the reason, the results speak for themselves.
For over a decade the Cowboys have consistently been among the lowest cash spending teams. They rarely spend in free agency, which in and of itself is fine. But they generally wait until the last possible minute to sign players to big money extensions, which means they pay higher year to year rates than if they got extensions done sooner, but it also allows them to keep their cash spending within a budget every year. They also try to keep the agent out of the negotiations as much as possible, to pressure the player into taking less than he could get.
It’s not just players that they are cheap with. They let the contracts of Mike McCarthy and Jason Garrett expire rather than fire them with time remaining (and Wade Phillips was fired during the final year of his contract) which means that they don’t have to pay two coaches–the current and the previous–at once.
But at least Daron Bland got paid, right? Well, 11 of Bland’s 14 career interceptions have come in the second half. 10 have come while the Cowboys were up by at least two touchdowns, and only one when the Cowboys were trailing. 8 were in the second half while up two TDs. All 14 were with Dan Quinn calling plays. He had zero interceptions last year, though in just seven games. The Cowboys were only up 14+ in the second half twice last season in games he played. Oh and now he doesn’t have an S tier edge rusher creating pressure. Good luck with that.
I actually feel bad for Brian Schottenheimer. He was already going to fail on his own, but the Cowboys are tying both his hands behind his back before they throw him in the deep end. And he won’t be freed from this hell, because firing him would, in addition to costing money, be Jerry Jones admitting he made a mistake, and Jerry Jones does not admit he made mistakes.
America’s Team are an NPC franchise. Or even worse, a poverty franchise.
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