Cowboys Nation Mailbag: Biggest Free Agent Impact, Randy Gregory News

Training Camp has finally arrived and the time has come for the Dallas Cowboys to practice football in anticipation of the 2019 regular season. They’ll play a football game, though only a preseason game against the San Francisco 49ers on August 10th, which is just 12 days away.

The news out of training camp has been coming hot and heavy, with a lot of it focusing on the negotiations between Ezekiel Elliott and the Dallas Cowboys front office, but from the sounds of it, there are some really exciting things happening in these practices.

Let’s dig into this week’s mailbag questions.

What free agent player do you believe will have the most impact?

— John Herndon (@JohnHerndonJr) July 29, 2019

This is probably one of the easier questions to answer. It’s Randall Cobb.

Randall Cobb slides in as the starting slot receiver for the Dallas Cowboys offense and as a former 1,000-yard receiver brings excellent ability to play on the inside. Per NFL Next Gen Stats, Cobb averaged more than three yards after the catch per reception (6.5) than Cole Beasley (3.4) in 2018.

The exciting part about Randall Cobb is that he’s another player that can add chunk plays to the Dallas Cowboys passing game. In addition to Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup, who both provided big plays in the passing game in 2018, Cobb is a player who can get away from defenders after the catch and pick up first downs and go for big yardage.

Prior to Amari Cooper coming on board in 2018, the Dallas Cowboys relied too heavily on long, clock-eating drives. It’s good for a team to be able to go on eight or 10 play drives, but you need your offense to be able to score through big plays as well. Adding Cobb to a passing game that began to find its big-play ability in the second half of 2018 is huge for Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys heading into 2019.

Any news on Gregory reinstatement?

— Tommy (@TommyVictorySec) July 29, 2019

There were reports a couple of weeks ago that the legal team for Randy Gregory had filed for reinstatement. When asked at the State of the Cowboys pre-training camp press conference if Gregory’s team had applied for reinstatement, Jerry Jones believed that the legal team for Gregory hadn’t yet applied for reinstatement.

Randy Gregory will be a test case for the NFL and the NFLPA moving forward. There appears to be a softening by the league as it relates to marijuana as an alternative treatment for pain as well as mental health disorders, which Gregory has struggled with for years.

There will be no timetable on an official reinstatement once Gregory does apply with the NFL’s league office. They tend not to be in any kind of hurry to readmit players to the league. Though the Dallas Cowboys front office, in particular, Jerry Jones, remains optimistic, he’s one of those players you can’t really count on being available until he’s actually available.

The word is he’s done all the work to get himself right with the NFL’s policy on substance abuse and his legal team has an excellent presentation ready to go to get Gregory reinstated, however, we’re still dealing with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. There’s no guarantee that Goodell will see Gregory’s case in the same light that the Dallas Cowboys do.

If and when they get him back for the 2019 season, he’ll be just another excellent piece for the Dallas Cowboys pass rush. But for now, we wait with bated breath. As with the contract negotiations, we won’t know anything until we know something.

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The Dallas Cowboys continue to inspire hope that this team could be a legit Super Bowl contender in 2019 and if Randall Cobb is as good and as healthy as we think he can be in 2019, then the offense will take another step forward this year. Additionally, if Randy Gregory is available for the majority of the 2019 season, it’s only going to make everyone else on the defensive line better, which trickles down to the back seven.

Thanks for this week’s questions and remember, if you ever have a question you’d like to see featured here, leave it in the comment section or send it to John on Twitter using the hashtag #CowboysNationMailbag.