INDIANAPOLIS – After a one-year hiatus due to COVID-19, the NFL scouting combine has resumed operation. A sense of normalcy has returned as college football players vie to up their draft stock through physical and mental tests in the week-long showcase.
As per usual, Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones spoke with reporters in Indy. Here are the top takeaways from topics he addressed:
- Stephen Jones was bluntly asked if wide receiver Amari Cooper will be on the roster in 2022. Since the conclusion of the 2021 season, a question has lingered: Will the Cowboys pay Cooper $20 million each season or move on and save $16 million? He is the club’s bonafide No. 1 receiver on paper but was not utilized in that manner down the stretch. Jones gave a noncommittal reply. “It’s too early for me to address that yet. We’re continuing to have conversations. A lot of things affect that in terms of — we’ve obviously been so fortunate to have those three great receivers on our roster, and obviously that’s hard to keep doing under a salary cap.” Cooper missed two games while on the Reserve/COVID-19 list as a result of his unvaccinated designation and prolonged mandatory quarantine period. When the questioned was posed if vaccination status will affect a player’s future, Jones responded, “No, no.”
- It is no secret that that Cowboys once esteemed offensive line got beat at the point of attack consistently during the 2021 season. With the glory days a distant memory, the unit became a liability this past season. Throughout the course of the year, the line could not establish the run against light boxes (ranked 20th in yards before contact per rush) and could not provide Dak Prescott with effective protection in the pocket. Most notably, the Cowboys were the most penalized offensive line in the league, which largely contributed to the unit’s regression. The line amassed 54 penalties total, 49 accepted. The 49 penalties nullified 373 yards gained, constantly putting the Cowboys in unfavorable down and distance situations. Opponents were able to generate pressure from a four-man rush, allocating more resources to the back end. On offensive line improvement, Jones said, “All things are in play. You keep bringing guys up. We’re not going to address individuals, but all of that is in play when you’re trying to figure what’s going to give you the best chance to win: who you keep, who you move on from. Those are going to be tough decisions because I have so much respect for the men who were on the team this year. When you’re not going to be able to keep some of these guys, it’s tough.”
- Do not expect any splash moves in free agency. The Cowboys are projected to be more than $21 million over the 2022 salary cap according to OverTheCap.com. Space can be created by restructuring current contracts, but some players could become salary cap casualties. Restructuring contracts is a short-term solution but can have negative effects on the cap in the future. Dallas has 21 unrestricted free agents set to hit the open market in March. The Cowboys traditionally build through the draft and pickup additional bargains in free agency, signing short-term deals. The pattern is expected to be repeated. “The salary cap is a real thing and certainly as we move forward and you have a quarterback and every team experiences that has a franchise quarterback that they now paid him their second contract, you know, just have to make some decisions, some tough ones. But I think the ones, unfortunately, if we lose a couple of good players and hopefully, we’ll continue to do a good job with our drafting process and look for value in free agency so we can draft the way we historically drafted, which is not on a need basis, but on a best player available basis.”
- Amari Cooper made his frustrations known during the 2021 season as a result of his lack of targets and involvement in the offense. Teams were predominately using a two-high shell against Dallas, which resulted in more opportunities for Cedrick Wilson from the slot and Dalton Schultz on intermediate/underneath routes. With single coverage on Cooper on the outside, the trust element was not there between No. 19 and Dak Prescott. He was criminally underutilized as the Cowboys’ “No. 1.” On Cooper’s decreased role in 2021, Jones remarked, “I just think it’s an offensive philosophy and when we had the skill players that we had between Kellen [Moore] and Dak, there was a progression of where you threw the ball, and, depending on how the defense played you, it would point the ball to certain places where, hey, if they’re going to double over and they’re going to double over the top over here, that’s going to dictate the ball goes here. So, I think it’s more of a system deal. It wasn’t a thing where we said, hey, we’re not going to target Amari as much.”
- There is a strong chance the Cowboys will not have both DeMarcus Lawrence and Randy Gregory in 2022. Lawrence has two years remaining on his contract and his base salary for 2022 is $19 million. Given his age (turns 30 in April) and track record with injury, it is unlikely that the Cowboys would restructure his contract to create space under the cap. The Cowboys would like to keep Gregory, who achieved the most productive campaign of his career in 2021. Dan Quinn worked Gregory out at Nebraska during the pre-draft process in 2015 and had been infatuated with the player ever since. The two were reunited last season and mutual trust materialized into production. However, what kind of commitment are the Cowboys willing to make? Gregory is an unrestricted free agent, with durability concerns. Despite his performance in 2021, Gregory has played in 50 games over the last seven seasons due to an exorbitant number of suspensions. He turns 30 in November and Gregory’s hefty dollar amount may be more than the Cowboys want to spend. Will the team’s loyalty to Gregory pay off in the offseason? “I mean, you hope so. I hope that’s the case with all of our guys out here: that they really want to be in Dallas and there’s a lot of advantages to being a Cowboy. There’s a lot advantages to living in Dallas, Texas, in terms of the business part of things. So, you know, you just hope at the end of the day when you do sit right down to it and we’re trying to make this thing work that we are going to have people, agents and players, give us a chance.”
