It's full price with a little less on the guaranteed side. No discount for injury history or for extending him out of a rookie paycheck a year early. Ignores the threat of franchise tagging him next year, even though that's on the high side for his position.

Not terrible at $16m guaranteed but not exactly a good deal either. He's going to have to play at peak levels and stay healthy to justify that money and it's not a safe bet to assume he will.

Still have to see the contract structure to figure out if they're going to be forced to restructure this over the next couple of years. Which they probably will I'm sure.

One report saying it's a $10m signing bonus, with $6m in guaranteed base salary. If so that's far better.

But you know if he stays healthy more than 80% of the time, you're paying $8.5m/year average. That's top-shelf salary for the position so he better stay awesome, not just healthy.

Do we ever sign our own guys at a discount? With the injuries in football, seems like hometown discounts a year or two before free agency should be the norm. Good lord Jerry.

No, never. This one's better than usual because Lee is actually good, young, and basically essential. The structure is now known and is much better than initially reported though. If he plays well and if they don't restructure him in 2014, it will work out.

However the 2014 salary cap obligations are sitting at $149m today, more than $20m over what it's expected to be. That's with Spencer, Hatcher off the books as well as the kicker, punter, Will Allen unsigned, as well as some backups. Then the rookie class contracts, then replacement players. The need to open major space.

If you want to know where they can save money, check the dead money versus cap charge here. Looking pretty tight though. I don't see too many players they can save much of anything by letting go of.

They can roll over money unused from this season, which presently is about $7.2m. More or less depending on who doesn't make the roster, and what kind of replacements they hire over the course of the season. I doubt that figure is over $3m by season's end.

But I'll just save you the suspense, they're going to have to restructure the biggest deals again whether they play well this year or not and there will be cuts post June 1. Expect another quiet free agency for sure if you're hoping for some stud signings to fill holes.

But hey that's next year, right? Doesn't matter.

Just seems pretty familiar to me. Bunch of holes to fill, aging key players, restructuring, can't seem to afford quality free agents. And Anthony Spencer gets the second-highest cap charge this year and he's not even practicing right now.

This team better be sharp, that's all I can say. There's no help coming if they're not.

Jerry was raving about Stephen being a cap guru again. Restructuring deals is not being a genius.

Yeah.

The frustrating aspect is that these problems aren't hard to fix. Had they just let Spencer walk and sign or draft a guy in maybe the 2nd, you'd radically change their circumstances. You're short a very good player, but you can find a tolerable 4-3 DE for far less money in most seasons. A $10.6m temporary solution is what they have in Spencer. Why not just go with a guy like Idonije or some other low-cost temporary option and make do? They know what's coming the next couple of years.

Even guys like Elvis Dumervil can be had for wayyy more reasonable a price.

2013: $1 million salary; $7.5 million signing bonus
2014: $1 million salary; $3.5 million option bonus
2015: $4 million salary
2016: $4 million salary
2017: 5 million salary

Jerry loves being loyal to his guys. If you're a good player in Dallas you will get paid handsomely.

Dumervil was a freak thing, he wanted to play for the Ravens pretty badly. He's guaranteed exactly zip beyond this season for a lower salary. Elite 29-year-old pass rushers don't sign deals like that unless they want to be there. That offer probably wasn't available to Dallas or anyone else if I had to guess. But there were other alternatives out there that could man the position with experience as a 4-3 end who would fit the cap better.

I hate beating that drum but I can't wrap my head around why they would make that decision given circumstances.

lol at start of game. Penalty, sack.

Seriously, 5-11?

7-9.

Eagles, Giants, and Skins are pretty mediocre as well.

We just hit the scoreboard, re-kicked, and got taken for 75 and 6.

lol this year.

Does Tanner have the #2 spot locked up?

Dez going to have a serious year.

Will say this, Romo looks crazy motivated and dialed in.

This.

Also, pretty pleasantly surprised with the 1st team D.

Tanner is #4 so far as I can tell. Lance Dunbar is temporarily out with a sprained foot, but if he comes back healthy he looks like a lock #2 in the Felix Jones role. Randle did okay today but wasn't impressed with him at all this camp/preseason and Broaddus etc say the same. He's a 5th round back who missed a lot of time, so that's about par for the course. He's shown enough to make the squad so that's a start.

Dunbar looks fairly practiced/polished, capable receiver, and he's fast. And (like Murray) he needs to be careful with the football but IIRC it wasn't a problem for him in college. People point out that he's small but that's fine for his purpose. A good surprise if he can carry it into the season.

Romo's arm looks great, way better than the beginning of last year.

Special teams though really scares me. Borderline awful by the look of it.

Pencil in Holloman as a mortal lock for the roster. He might even snag that LB starting job before too long. I see #57 everywhere and making solid plays. Both he and Frederick have shown pretty well out of this rookie class. The others, not so much.

Purely results-oriented nonsense, popular opinion 1st round recap, injuries:

2010: Dez Bryant was a popular pick and Cowboys took him. Kiper, lol, mocked Bruce Campbell to them and said he had him rated a top 10 pick. Campbell went in the 4th round. Result: Even also Dezzzzz

2011: Prince Amukamara sucks. JJ Watt rules though. But Prince was the name I saw the most. Starting 0 games rookie season. Result: Tyron Smith, starter, win.

2012: Chance Warmack, popular choice for Cowboys 1st rounder, lost for season after two games. Result: Claiborne minus a 2nd rounder, TBD.

2013: Jonathan Cooper, one of a few possibilities, probably lost for season. Shariff Floyd will be a backup this year. PS - the story goes the scouts liked him a lot, but the coaches shot it down. Result: Frederick plus a WR, a win by default if either contribute

again garbage just for fun

Ratliff on PUP, out for 6 games. Cool.

Might just bet the over on all game totals until I lose.

NFL rosters were cut down to 75 today. Cowboys' moves:

DE/DT Tyrone Crawford (to IR)
C/G Ryan Cook (to IR)

DT Jay Ratliff (to PuP)

Waived:

K Brett Maher
QB Nick Stephens
WR Anthony Amos
WR Eric Rogers
WR Jared Green
TE Colin Cochart
G Dennis Godfrey
CB/S Brandon Underwood
LB Deon Lacey
DT Jeris Pendleton

No surprises here. Rogers started strong and fizzled out. Underwood and Pendleton were the only two with any shot at all. They have to cut another 22 on Saturday which will be the tough one.

Don't see any names from other teams Dallas would be interested in, those would probably be next week. The way JJ is talking they're probably going to wait until after Week 1 to bring in any further help because of the cap thing, other that swapping out bottom-10 roster spot with some other kid.

Jay Ratliff is a case study in how NOT to properly manage personnel. And to add insult to injury--literally--they restructured $3.6m of his salary this year. They knew about the attitude, the DUI, injury problems and the fact that he's old. We could have been done with him this season for like $6m dead and moved on.

Now they're probably going to pay $7m next season to cut him AFTER like $5m this year, which he hasn't practiced for and will miss like a third of. Hope he's worth blowing $12m in cap space for to play maybe 8 games, if we're lucky. That's two years' worth of a decent guard or safeties' salary, or a even fair DT to replace the guy. Horrible.

Good news is any team that makes the dance at 9-7 or 10-6 can make the Super Bowl. Only thing keeping me sane as a fan is the variance.

Maybe Dez will go for 2500 and 24 and we can sneak in at 8-8

ya but every single team that pulled the old 9-7/10-6 superbowl had an above average D. We don't.

Secret sauce eh?

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...-sauce-to-win/

He's expecting better than 8-8. He's literally mad, right? I mean he has to know this is an 8-8 team or worse? I don't get how he can go fire another coach (probably), when the obvious answer is you need to fire the GM....

I'll never forget giving up a 1st and 3rd for Roy Williams. To me that's his legacy.