Mickey Spags covers the Henson in Europe angle and paints a less than optimistic portrait of Henson's future. While Mickey doesn't actually opine on what's going to ultimately happen, he points out that success stories from NFLE QB's are few and far between.
Henson's career in Dallas has been one of confusion and uncertainty. Hailed as the QB of the future when he was signed, Parcells seems to have a casual indifference to Henson. The famous benching at halftime in the Chicago game in 2004 served notice that Parcells doesn't trust him to run the team and probably never will.
Fortunately from Henson's perspective, Parcells probably only has 1-2 years left in Dallas at which time the Cowboys will also make a decision on Bledsoe and his future. Today's conventional wisdom has Tony Romo as the flavor of the month and possible future Cowboys' starter. But Romo is now suffering from the same problem as Henson, lack of playing time.
Parcells shows an almost slavish devotion to his starters allowing little time for mop-up duty in garbage time. This was put to the test when Dallas was eliminated from the playoffs about an hour before they played the Rams to finish the season. This seemed like an ideal time to give either Romo or Henson some meaningful playing time in a real game. Parcells chose to play Bledsoe for the entire game.
As long as Parcells is here, no QB except Drew Bledsoe will receive any playing time barring an injury. So Romo will carry the clipboard and Henson will backpack through Europe. The Cowboys organization is closing it eyes to the long-term future and betting the house on success in the next couple of years. By the time the Parcells/Bledsoe combo exits Valley Ranch, the Cowboys better have some significant skins on the wall, because lean times could follow.
One only needs to look back to the end of Aikman's career when Dallas had no QB successor groomed for action. The debacle of Carter, Leaf, Hutchinson, etc. serves as a potent reminder: Betting the house on an aging QB is risky business, if Jones and Co. don't cash in with Super Bowl victories, they'll have no excuses when the replacement for Bledsoe isn't ready.
The Cowboys are trying to "shoot the moon" this year and the next. If they don't make it; hell hath no fury like a fan base scorned and no Super Bowl title to hide behind.