Countdown to Elliot: Dallas Cowboys 2016 Offseason Thread

Thegospel

Thegospel

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Dwight Howard said:
Barnwell: The great Dallas draft debate -- QB or not QB?

Using the No. 4 pick on a quarterback, though? The more you look at the idea, the more it falls apart at the seams. Romo's an incredible quarterback, but his style is so improvisational and unique that it's hard to imagine Carson Wentz or Jared Goff taking much away. Neither of those passers are Romo clones -- outside of Russell Wilson, there's nobody really like Romo in the league. Having longtime backup Garrett around as head coach would be helpful, but we still have no idea whether Garrett is effective at developing quarterbacks; Romo was a Pro Bowler by the time Garrett arrived on staff as offensive coordinator in 2007. That's not to say Garrett can't, just that he hasn't yet.

Even if the Cowboys did take a quarterback, the reality is that Romo's not going anywhere for a while: his contract is unmoveable, either via trade, release, or retirement. Thanks to past contractual missteps and desperate maneuverings to clear out cap space, the Cowboys have needed to restructure Romo's deal twice to convert his base salary into signing bonuses, pushing the cap hit for those deals into the future. That leaves Romo with massive cap hits on the Dallas roster, regardless of whether the Cowboys keep him or get rid of him:

If the Cowboys cut Romo as a post-June 1 release, they would absorb the remaining dead money on their cap the following year; in other words, if the Cowboys cut Romo as a post-June 1 release before the 2017 season, they would owe $10.7 million on their cap in 2017 and the other $8.9 million in 2018. Dallas already has $146.9 million on their cap in 2017, the second-highest figure in football behind Philadelphia, so leaving even $12.7 million in dead money on their cap would be disastrous.

In reality, the earliest the Cowboys can move on from Romo -- assuming that they don't restructure his deal again -- is 2018. They could turn Romo into the most expensive backup QB in the history of pro football, but that's probably not going to happen, either. So if the Cowboys draft a passer, you have to assume that he'll spend a minimum of two seasons serving as a backup and injury replacement before stepping in as the full-time starter in 2018.

Once you get to that point, does it really make sense to take a quarterback fourth? Much of the value of drafting a rookie quarterback comes from the fact that they make a fraction of what quarterback talent costs on the free market, allowing teams to spend elsewhere. Marcus Mariota, Blake Bortles, and Jameis Winston will each have cap hits between $5.5 million and $6 million this year, just slightly ahead of Josh McCown and Chase Daniel, each of whom will make in the $5 million range.

If your rookie quarterback is sitting behind Romo for two years, you're losing the first two years of that valuable market inefficiency while paying the $5.5 million market value for a backup quarterback. Instead, the Cowboys would really get only two years of below-market salaries and a fifth-year option for 2020, which will be in excess of $20 million by the time we get there.

A successful top-five rookie quarterback who enters the lineup from day one and produces at the league average generates something like $56 million in marginal value over his rookie contract, given that he makes an average of $6 million or so over his first four years and would probably be worth something like $20 million per year for those same deals on the free market. When you consider that years 1, 2, and 5 of a potential rookie deal for Wentz or Goff with the Cowboys probably would be at about market value, the Cowboys could only really expect to get about $28 million of marginal value by taking a quarterback fourth. The numbers here oversimplify the story, but the concept is the same -- Dallas just isn't going to get what a typical team would get out of taking a QB high in the first round.

:patrice:
Click to expand...
:mjcry:No QB huh?
 
Codeine Bryant

Codeine Bryant

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Dwight Howard said:
and where did we find romo...
Click to expand...
He's probably the 2nd greatest UDFA ever after Kurt Warner.

:usure:

We really counting on punching another lottery ticket and doing something that teams seemingly do once ever 20-30 years again?

The odds probably aren't even that good. I can only think of Warner and Romo as being franchise QBs that weren't drafted...
 
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philmonroe

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BlueHeffner said:
How long/how many losing seasons did we have to go thru before we did find him :jbhmm:
Click to expand...
You actually responding to this dude on this shyt? This silly nikka talking like udfa QB's that end up like Romo and Kurt Warner come along like its nothing. @Codeine Fiend Dream Team said what I said before I even got to his post because dude shyt was sooooo stupid I had to reply before seeing the other replies smfh.
 
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