Since the season ended unceremoniously to the New York Giants back on New Year's Day, it's been reasonably expected that once the front office and coaching staff begins to evaluate the depth chart for the 2012 season, Doug Free and Tyron Smith will switch positions. During the past month, I've read comments every now and then suggesting Jerry and Stephen Jones overpaid Doug Free last summer. Without knowing the salaries for the rest of the starting left tackles, this is more of an assumption. In actuality, his contract is both reasonable in dollar amount and in length. His contract placed him in the middle of the pack for starting left tackles in 2011.

After the jump, we'll have a look at the salaries, most of which came from rotoworld.

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rabblerouser's latest front page contribution (Cowboys Offseason Plan: A Lot Of Holes To Fill) inspired me to come up with my own free agency plan. After getting it all out I realized it was far too long to post as a comment on the original story page. So, here I am posting my first attempt at a FanPost. Please be gentle with me. (And if you haven't done so already, do yourself a favor and check out rabble's take on the 'Boys offseason plans.)

As I was going through free agent lists I was imagining the team signing Carl Nicks, arguably the best OG in the NFL, or stud OLB/DE Mario Williams to be the long sought after bookend to Ware to form the most dominant pass rushing tandem in the league. But as I started evaluating the current roster, identifying where the most glaring holes are, and just how many holes there are, I began to wonder how many can be filled with ~$23M in cap space (after Newman's release). After daydreaming of a free agency haul of Nicks, Finnegan and Super Mario, reality smacked me upside the head.

The two weakest links on the roster by far were the interior OL (specifically center) and the secondary (specifically Newman) based on the grades from ProFootballFocus, not to mention the 'ol eyeball test. If all the 'Boys were to accomplish this off season is sign average players to man these two positions, these two changes alone would represent massive upgrades. These are obviously the two most important needs, but far from the only problems to be addressed.

A quality veteran center - like Chris Meyers (Hou) or Scott Wells (GB) - will probably get a contract in the neighborhood of ~$5-6M annually. Compared to the $9M per Nicks is expected to command, and considering the sieve the 'Boys had at the pivot, this is a far better allocation of limited resources in my mind. This allows them to address a far greater weakness for a fraction of the money.

The bidding for a starting caliber CB to replace Newman will probably start around $8M/year - at least (Joseph signed a 5-year deal worth $48.75 million, with $23.5 million guaranteed last year). Obviously, Joseph's $9.75M/year may be a bit (a lot) outside the 'Boys price range if they hope to address all of their pressing needs prior to the draft. With that in mind, hopefully they can sign a solid journeyman - like Stanford Routt or Tim Jennings - or a talented injured player that needs to re-establish their market value - like Tyrell Thomas - to half what they might expect to pay the top corners in FA. These may not be the elite players we'd like to see on the field (with the exception of Thomas when healthy), but any of these guys would be a huge improvement over the disastrous season Newman had last year.

With Bruce Carter still unproven and virtually no depth behind him and Lee, Dallas also probably needs to sign a vet ILB capable of starting to a Brooking-like contract (~$2-3M/year minimum). A player like Channing Crowder or Bart Scott (reports claim he will be a cap casualty of the Jets) would fit the bill. As for backup QB, if they deem McGee to be an adequate #2, they can find a #3 QB for the vet minimum. Otherwise, this may cost another ~$2M/year easy (Kitna made an avg salary of $2.65M).

Do they re-sign Spencer or Elam? If not, they'll need to sign their replacements. Ideally they'd be able to upgrade both positions, but realistically they should at least attempt to re-sign Spencer and replace Elam. Spencer wasn't great, but he was no liability. Elam on the other hand... Re-signing Spencer will probably cost ~$6-7M/year. Any more than that and you have to start considering other options, even if that means signing a less productive player. Dallas should be able to replace Elam with a starting quality vet - like Tyvon Branch, Thomas DeCoud, Mike Adams, Dwight Lowery, etc. - for around the same $2.5M he made last season.

Conservatively, between signing a C, CB, ILB, backup QB and S and re-signing Spencer, that's ~$23M worth of cap space in annual salaries. Yes, the team can and likely will design these contracts to be more cap friendly in the first year, but we have yet to address how much Laurent Robinson will cost to retain, or what to do at OG, or allocated any cap space for the incoming rookie class, or re-signed Fiametta, McBriar, etc.

That said, I would like to see the 'Boys round out their free agency spending spree on re-signing Robinson if his contract expectations are reasonable, and re-signing Holland to an incentive laden deal based on performance and conditioning as insurance. Holland actually acquitted himself quite well last season. Between him, the developing kids in the pipeline (Arkin, Costa, Kowalski, Nagy) and a reportedly deep pool at OG in this year's draft, we should have options and depth here.

This plan would give Dallas the greatest flexibility to draft the BPA in April. I'd hate to see the team pass on a superior player simply to fill a need. This is the blueprint I'm envisioning as I play amateur Cowboys GM anyway.

Under a post called Priorities, Priorities, Priorities that I put up a few days ago, I laid out an ambitious offseason plan that Dallas could implement. Several people thought I was stretching what we could do. By way of this post, I want to add a new argument about just how aggressive Dallas could be. Let's look at what Philly did last year.

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Here's who Philly added in the offseason last year, including the contracts they signed.

09/04/2011 Claimed G Kyle DeVan off waivers from the Indianapolis Colts (did not last)

08/10/2011 Agreed to terms with WR Steve Smith on a one-year deal (26) ($4 million)

08/02/2011 Agreed to terms on a one-year deal with S Jarrad Page (did not last)

08/02/2011 Agreed to terms with RB Ronnie Brown on a one-year deal (30) ($1 million)

07/31/2011 Agreed to terms on one-year deal with G Evan Mathis ($735K)

07/30/2011 Agreed to terms on one-year deal with LB Akeem Jordan ($735K)

07/30/2011 Agreed to terms on five-year deal with DT Cullen Jenkins (31) ($25 million)

07/29/2011 Agreed to terms on five-year deal with DE Jason Babin (31) ($28 million)

07/29/2011 Agreed to terms on five-year deal with CB Nnamdi Asomugha (30) ($60 million)

07/29/2011 Agreed to terms on one-year deal with QB Vince Young (28) ($4 million)

07/28/2011 Acquired CB Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie (25) ($950K in 2011, $1.9 mill in 2012) and 2012 second round draft pick for QB Kevin Kolb.

07/26/2011 Agreed to terms with P Chas Henry ($500 K)

04/30/2011 Eagles select LB Brian Rolle with No. 193 pick in the NFL Draft

04/30/2011 Eagles select C Jason Kelce with No. 191 pick in the NFL Draft

04/30/2011 Eagles select OL Julian Vandervelde with No. 161 pick in the NFL Draft

04/30/2011 Eagles select RB Dion Lewis with No. 149 pick in the NFL Draft

04/30/2011 Eagles select K Alex Henery with No. 120 pick in the NFL Draft

04/30/2011 Eagles select LB Casey Matthews with No. 116 pick in the NFL Draft

04/29/2011 Eagles select CB Curtis Marsh with No. 90 pick in the NFL Draft

04/29/2011 Eagles select S Jaiquawn Jarrett with No. 54 pick in the NFL Draft

04/28/2011 Eagles select G Danny Watkins with No. 23 pick in first round of NFL Draft

02/11/2011 DE Phillip Hunt - Signed to a three-year deal (26) ($500K)

(I pasted in this list from a poster on a Philly board.)

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By comparison, here's my list for who the Cowboys should go after in free agency, matched against the Eagles' free agents. .

1. OG Carl Nicks = contract more than, but comparable to Asomougha (5 yr, $60 mil)

2. C Chris Myers = contract for less than Cullen Jenkins (5 yr, $25 mil)

3. OLB Anthony Spencer = contract comparable to Jason Babin (5 yr, $28 mil)

4. WR Laurent Robinson = contract for longer, but would cost less than Steve Smith in 2011 ($4 mil)

5. Free agent CB = contract could be done for less in 2012 than Vince Young cost in 2011 ($4 million)

6. Free Agent ILB = contract could be done comparable to Mathis + Jordan + Hunt ($2 mil)

7. Rex Grossman = costs about what Ronnie Brown cost ($1.15 million in 2011 v. $1 million for Brown)

8. FA Safety = No comparable

9. Punter = If McBriar, will cost more ($2 mil) than Chas Henry ($500K)

I think my plan could be done for no more than what Philly's plan cost them in 2011 because first year's of free agent contracts can always be structured to be no more than veteran minimums plus pro-rated signing bonuses. So, while I agree Carl Nicks will cost more than Nnamdi Asomougha over the life of the deal, he needn't cost any more in 2012. Meanwhile, Myers will cost less than Jenkins, Robinson will cost less than Smith, a free agent CB could be had for no more than Vince Young's 1 year cost, etc. etc.

The other thing I would note is that Philly spent a lot of money on mostly over-30 guys. Whereas my plan for the Cowboys would be to sign everyone under 30, with the lone exceptions of Chris Myers and Rex Grossman.

It's very doable in terms of cost for the Cowboys to implement this plan.

Websters dictionary defines the word hindsight as "perception of the nature of an event after it has happened". As football fans, we use the word hindsight all the time when looking back at previous situations involving our team. This is common when looking back at past draft classes.

I wanted to start a fresh and new series, called "The Hindsight Games". Using hindsight is usually frowned upon by the esteemed population on BTB. It usually makes the person using hindsight look like a fraud or phony. I am comfortable enough with myself to write a few articles based on hindsight. In the first article, I decided to go back to the 2011 NFL Draft.

During that long off season, I pushed the wagon on Tyron Smith. I would not go back and change his draft selection, but I will play the devils advocate and talk about the possibilities of drafting another player. We are still in the hanging pattern doing circles before the real off season begins. The combine is a couple of weeks away, free agency is over a month away and the NFL Draft doesn't take place for months.

I am running out of stuff to talk about and I thought that this would be a fun article for everyone to read. The Hindsight Games is nothing like the Hunger Games, so don't worry about being selected to fight to the death in a arena. Though that would offer me some true excitement to see some of you battle against each other, I know I am a sick man.

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In the past, the Giants GM had a business model of using Free Agency to fix their most GLARING need(s) in order to select the Best Player Available (BPA) on DRAFT night. With Jason Garrett recently spouting the same principles for the Cowboys (while admitting it may not be possible this year), lets look at the GLARING needs of the Cowboys versus our 2012 CAP space. Last year, we were $20M OVER the Salary CAP which lead to massive cuts to our OL and other overpriced players which we all know lead to a disastrous Cowboys season due to Jerrah being forced to sign too many average to below-average players. This year, it's estimated that we will be $17M (or so) UNDER the Salary Cap although we must preserve at least $5 million to sign our 2012 rookie class. I'm not a 'MATH major' but it sounds like the Cowboys may have ONLY enough money to make one decent splash in Free Agency this year.

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`m rep for The Dallas Cowboys in a Twitter GM Mock hosted by Froginthewindow. The Mock Draft starts this Saturday at 3 pm EST and is scheduled for 3 rds. This is basically a dry run for a 7rd Mock to be held later after free agency has sorted things out. No particulars have been released as far as time slots or time limits per pick.

What I want to be is a fly on the wall of our own Blogging the Boys War room so I`m looking for some help.

What I need is a Jerry... A Stephen.... a Jason...a Tom... oh heck probably about 5 or 6 opinions for each time we go on the clock. Actually anyone can chime in once we get close to being OTC but as a group we should decide a Jerry to make the ultimate decision. But those applying to be Jerry must be able to be on the Greatest web site in the World come Saturday Night. We can even have a Jerry2, Jerry 3 etc and the highest Jerry available will carry the power.

As the flyonthewall for the froginthewindow GM Mock I will be responsible for updating this thread the progress of the draft and will provide a list of the top rated players not selected whom we can hash over as the draft moves forward.I will also get our pick to the podium.

Once we / if we get posters interested in participating we decide through a vote who our Jerry (s) should be.

Hopefully this pilot project works out and we can redo this in the 7 rd`er later on.

Hope it works out and remember this is for fun and open to all Cowboy fans.

Round 1

1. Indianapolis (2-14)
2. St. Louis (2-14)
3. Minnesota (3-13)
4. Cleveland (4-12)
5. Tampa Bay (4-12)
6. Washington (5-11)
7. Jacksonville (5-11)
8. Miami (6-10)
9. Carolina (6-10)
10. Buffalo (6-10)
11. Kansas City (7-9)
12. Seattle (7-9)
13. Arizona (8-8)
14. Dallas (8-8)
15. Philadelphia (8-8)
16. New York Jets (8-8)
17. Cincinnati - from Oakland (8-8)
18. San Diego (8-8)
19. Chicago (8-8)
20. Tennessee (9-7)
21. Cincinnati* (9-7)
22. Cleveland - from Atlanta* (10-6)
23. Detroit* (10-6)
24. Pittsburgh* (12-4)
25. Denver* (8-8)
26. Houston* (10-6)
27. New England - from New Orleans* (13-3)
28. Green Bay* (15-1)
29. Baltimore* (12-4)
30. San Francisco* (13-3)
31. New England* (13-3)
32. New York Giants* (9-7)

On Monday morning, one of the front page writers of Mocking The Draft published a six round mock draft. He had the Cowboys taking the following players: Janoris Jenkins (CB), Kelechi Osemele (G), Phillip Blake (C), Kendall Reyes (DE), Eddy Whitley (S), and Tanner Brock (ILB). It was a nice effort, however, better players were left on the table each time he had the Dallas Cowboys making their selection.

Blogging The Boys own front page writer, One.Cool.Customer, aka OCC saw the mock draft, and put his spin on it. His method was simple, "[w]hat I like to do when I browse through these mocks is to look at which player I would have chosen for the Cowboys instead of the player proposed in the original mock...[and]...the player I choose instead of the pick proposed by MTD must be ranked lower in their mock draft than where the Cowboys are picking." If you haven't read his article detailing his alternate selections, click on the link provided. After the jump, I'm going to take my shot at a six round mock draft following OCC's guideline, and using CBS's current prospect rankings to measure the value.

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No player on the Cowboys roster is being talked about more than free agent to be, Anthony Spencer. My own personal opinions and views on Anthony Spencer have not been positive, but I will truly attempt to stay unbiased with my opinion on Spencer. I will also attempt to stay professional in this article and give Spencer a fair shake.

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1. Throw the book at Carl Nicks. He’s an elite player at his position and I’m tired of sub-par players on our offensive line. Let’s face it, we hope our T*LENT at the skill positions will bail us out but at crunch time they can’t block and execute their assignments (I refuse to write that dang T word).

a. Get Ben Grubbs if Nicks doesn’t pan out.

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Sorry to bring this back up and I know we have touched upon the subject at

Looking for a Nose Tackle in Free Agency ...

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