We already knew this was going be a crazy offseason for the Dallas Cowboys. But according to one NFL writer’s list, Dallas may have the most difficult free agency work of any team in the league in 2020. They boast the top names at three premier positions.
Yesterday, Vinnie Iyer of Sporting News published his Top 50 free agents of the 2020. That list unsurprisingly included three Dallas Cowboys; QB Dak Prescott, WR Amari Cooper, and CB Byron Jones.
Any list that didn’t include these players would be a joke. But what struck me was how high Iyer had them on the list.
Prescott was top free agent of 2020; first overall from all positions. Cooper was third overall and Jones and seventh; two players in the top three, all three in the top seven, and all of them the highest-ranked player at their respective positions.
That just reinforces what a critical offseason this is for the Cowboys. Between the starting quarterback, a former 1st-round pick at cornerback, and the receiver that we traded another 1st-rounder to acquire, a ton of talent and investment could be hitting the open market from Dallas.
Thankfully the front office has prepared for this storm. The Cowboys are currently set to have somewhere around $75 million in salary cap space according to various projections. They can pay for all three of Dak, Amari, and Byron in 2020 and still take care of other matters as well.
There have been valid criticisms stated about all three players from some segments of Cowboys Nation. But articles like this one help us to appreciate that for whatever warts we may see on our own players, the options from other teams aren’t looking any better.
If Dallas wants to compete for a Super Bowl in 2020 then keeping Prescott, Cooper, and Jones, warts and all, may be the best and only way to make that happen.
This isn’t to say that any of these guys are hands-down elite players at their positions in the NFL. But based on who’s about to hit free agency and where the Cowboys are positioned in the 2020 NFL Draft, they appear to be the best options for this offseason.
As much as “upgrading” sounds nice there have to be upgrades available. If Dallas loses any of these premier free agents this offseason then they could easily be taking a loss.
