A leopard cannot change its spots. The Dallas Cowboys spent the early portion of the offseason talking about financial prudence and making smart decisions. No longer were they going to compromise their future salary cap in order to make one more signing. No longer would they recklessly overpay players. It sounded great, and for a minute, they almost had people believing them.
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The team elected to let DeMarco Murray walk away in free agency rather than overpaying for somebody that plays the most fungible position in the league. The team franchise-tagged Dez Bryant and was working on a long-term deal. And they were not going to restructure Tony Romo's contract again in order to help unclog their future cap. But as the MMQB points out, the team has once again thrown caution to the wind.
The team paid an exorbitant sum to Greg Hardy on a one-year deal despite the fact that there was not a lot of interest in the star pass rusher around the league because of the severity of his alleged domestic violence incident (which only went away because he paid off the victim).
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The team also restructured Romo's deal again, which freed up nearly $13 million in cap space for the upcoming season. It also once again pushed a sizable chunk of money off onto future caps, which means that the team cannot part ways with Romo until after the 2017 season, or else they will suffer financial penalties that will be beyond crippling.
And on top of all of this, the team is still thinking about trading for Adrian Peterson. While AP is unquestionably one of the best backs in football, he is also 30 years old and the most expensive back in the league. Why pay such a premium when they can likely find a back who is 85 percent as good for next to nothing in the draft?
Because Jerry Jones simply cannot help himself. If the team wins a Super Bowl, obviously all of the moves will have been worth it. But if not, Jones is only making it harder to continue propping open Dallas's window of contention.
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