This may be one of the fastest moving free agency periods I’ve seen in several years. We’re seeing big paydays, and we’re seeing virtually all the top free agents being taken off the market. The Cowboys did most their spending on our own free agents, we know this; however, we still having some glaring needs, and with the market dried up we can almost pencil in what we’re going to draft.
Let’s start with the secondary. Its safe to say the secondary is the weakest link on the defensive side of the ball, and the Cowboys were not in the market for any of the big names out there. Moreover, free agent Jacques Reeves is gone, and not that we were going to sign him, but he was our nickelback and our emergency #2CB backup. Right now, nickelback is a huge question mark. Henry is injury prone, so assuming he gets his annual injury during the season, who starts? Allen Ball, Courtney Brown – get real.
#22 will goto a defensive back. This player will see immediate action at nickelback and will probably be the heir apparent once Henry is relegated to a nickel back or backup corner.
On the other side of the ball, we have a huge question mark at wide receiver. Besides Terrell Owens, our wide receivers corps are very mediocre. We all know what Crayton is, he’s a #3 WR at best. Terry Glenn has some major decisions to make, and even if he does return, he would be one akward fall or hard hit from ending his career. There’s no way the Cowboys roll into the 2008 season with these questions at wide receiver.
Free agency has also taken off several good receivers off the market, and unless you want to replace Glenn with another oft injured receiver in Javon Walker, we’re looking at drafting a receiver with that other first rounder. Forget Randy Moss too, I would be shocked if he were to sign here, we would need to do some creative arthur-anderson accounting to get him on board, and we won’t be doing that. So, look for us to draft a wide receiver early #28 should be the best receiver on the board.
What about RB? I almost convinced the Cowboys will not draft a RB in the first round, especially with Barber’s longterm deal still in the works. If you’re going to pay first round money, it needs to be to your franchise type players at keys positions. This year its cornerback and wide receiver, two positions that need to get younger and need to be the future at their respective positions. The future at RB starts and ends with Marion Barber, we can draft another RB in another round. We’re not going to do the whole 1st half/2nd half thing again like we did last year with Jones and Barber. Barber will start, and some other running back will come in to supply some rest time, this means drafting a running back in a later round in my opinion.
The only scenario I see us drafting a running back in the first round would be if the Cowboys believe that none of the receivers in this draft can help us significantly on offense. And if the Cowboys feel comfortable enough with our current receivers, the Cowboys could draft an explosive running back in the first round in order to compensate for the potential lack of production with the receivers in 2008, and that’s playing with fire in my opinion. I know that’s not inline with Garrett’s offensive philosophy as it would limit what you could do on offense. Let’s get a receiver to avoid this scenario.
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