Cowboys News: Examining The “Tony Romo To Restructure Contract For A Trade” Reports

Talkin’ Tony Romo, regrets from the 2016 NFL draft, and Ezekiel Elliott, plus more in this edition of Cowboys News.

Let's separate fact from fiction in QB market for Romo, Garoppolo and Cousins - Jason La Canfora

Jason La Canfora dropped an article yesterday trying to get at the reality of what is going on with Tony Romo, along with some other NFL quarterbacks. It was pretty standard fare for the most part, discussing release versus trade, possible landing spots (calling Houston, Kansas City and Denver as the most intriguing), and basically just running through what us avid followers of the situation had already discussed.

Then he dropped this little nugget in which sort of sounds like real news.

The thought of going to a rebuilding team obviously doesn’t make much sense at this point in [Romo’s] career, and being flexible with regard to massaging his contract to work within the cap constraints of a contending team is something to which he’s open.

I’m not sure, it might have been reported somewhere else, but for me this is the first time I’ve heard anybody say that Romo is open to ”massaging” his contract to facilitate a trade. It’s been kind of assumed that that would have to happen for a team to trade for him, so it kind of went without saying. But if Romo is truly open to doing that, it would seem to contradict the report that he was expecting to be released. Maybe contradict is too strong of a word, but it certainly muddies the waters. It says that Romo is at least considering the possibility of being traded.

Trading Tony Romo won’t be easy, if Romo doesn’t want it - PFT, Mike Florio

Over at PFT, Mike Florio argues that the Cowboys will have trouble trading Romo. That may be the case, but Florio’s reasons seem to be off base.

Romo has leverage. If he makes it clear he doesn’t want to be traded and if no team will trade for him if he doesn’t want to be traded, the Cowboys have two options: (1) pay him $14 million to hold a clipboard; or (2) cut him.

Romo also could threaten to retire if traded. While that would cost him $5 million if he followed through on the threat (see Jake Plummer), it’s another reason for a team that is thinking about trading for Romo to think twice before assuming that he’ll happily show up.

Yes, the Cowboys would like to get value for Romo; why wouldn’t they? But the specifics of this case will make it very difficult unless Romo is being traded to a place where he wants to play — and unless he’s getting the kind of contract walking through the door that will prompt him to fully and completely embrace all aspects of the starting quarterback job.

Florio has already said that he believes the Cowboys will release Romo, he’s repeated it several times so he has some incentive to keep pushing this narrative. But Florio doesn’t seem to realize the type of person and player Romo is. He wants to play football. Of course he wants to play for a good team, but he would rather play for a bad team than sit on the bench with the Cowboys for 2017. So he really doesn’t have that leverage. He would take a trade to Cleveland over sitting on the bench for the rest of his career.

Additionally, there is no indication that Romo is ready to retire. He knows it and the Cowboys know it, that’s not leverage either. And to think that Romo would ever not “fully and completely embrace all aspects of the starting quarterback job” because of some kind of contract issue also says Florio has no idea about who Romo is as a person or player.

The leverage he does have is to not alter his contract in an effort to kill any deals in hopes the Cowboys would release him. But, as noted in the first article posted, he would likely use that leverage to facilitate a trade to somewhere he wants to go.

BTW, here are the odds on where Romo will end up in 2017 according to Vegas.

Why Quarterback Is Again An Offseason Priority For The Cowboys - BTB, Tom Ryle

Speaking of quarterbacks, since it’s almost inconceivable to think Romo will be a Cowboy in 2017, our own Tom Ryle reminds us that backup quarterback is still a big issue in Dallas.

With Romo on his way out (and the whole story of where he might end up growing daily), the Cowboys now have exactly zero backup quarterbacks under contract. Kellen Moore and Mark Sanchez are both free agents. Even if the team should re-sign one of them, they still need at least two more camp arms. But camp arms and possible future backups are two different beasts, and the Cowboys have to be looking for the latter. Obviously they are not going to be looking to draft a quarterback early, but on day three, it becomes not just a possibility. It should be something of a priority.

This is definitely an issue that is going to grab a lot of attention, especially once the Romo situation is finally settled.

Top 5 players Cowboys regret passing on in 2016 draft: from a dynamic return man to pair of pass rushers - DMN

By all accounts, the Cowboys 2016 draft was stellar. And if Jaylon Smith can produce starting in 2017, it might go down as one of the better in history. But there are always misses along the way, or choices that were made that could have precluded a better player from ending up in Dallas. Maliek Collins had a fantastic rookie season, and has big expectations on him for the future. But should the Cowboys have gone in a different direction?

Drafted 69th overall by the Jacksonville Jaguars

Defensive end Yannick Ngakoue had quite an impact for Jacksonville. Ngakoue started 15 games and set a franchise rookie record for sacks with eight, pushing him past Tony Brackens. He forced four fumbles, came up with an interception and was named to the Pro Football Writers All Rookie Team.

Ngakoue was taken two picks after the Cowboys selected defensive tackle Maliek Collins.

There is an argument to be made on this one. Would you go back and take Ngakoue over Collins knowing what you know now?

Herschel Walker: Elliott helping make RBs vital again - NFL.com

From a former Cowboys running back to a current one.

[Herschel] Walker was presented with the Doak Walker Legacy Award on Saturday and spoke about remarked about the league's running back renaissance.

"They are and that's what we talked about yesterday," Walker said per The Dallas Morning News. "Even though they talk about the West Coast offense and all this stuff, to be honest, whenever you want to win the Super Bowl, who do you go to? The running back. Because you can pass the ball all you want to do, but when you want to win the game you better be able to run the ball and you better have that running back."

Walker also praised the young back's play during his rookie campaign.

"I love Zeke. I love his fire and the way he plays," he said. "Elliott loves to play football. It's amazing that he's carrying the ball 30-some times a day. People don't know, that's tough. And the guy comes back the next week and does the same thing and loves it. I was shocked that he's had the speed that he's had."

Ezekiel Elliott not detained, rep tells TMZ he wasn’t involved in incident - Star-Telegram

Just to clear this up, there was a rumor started that Elliott had been detained by the cops a couple of nights ago. Turns out to be false.

Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott posted a response, according to two media outlets, to an early report from the website TMZ that he was “detained” for about four minutes by police at a nightclub in Columbus, Ohio, on Friday night.

“I was never ‘detained’ by the police. Nor was I ever questioned or in any type of trouble,” read a social media post attributed to Elliott by 247Sports and NJ.com.

TMZ clarified the headline to its post that Elliott was detained: “Ezekiel’s rep tells us he spoke with cops about something that happened inside a club he had just left. The rep did not describe the incident but says it did not involve Ezekiel.”

Last week, we talked about defensive end Myles Garrett pleading with Jerry Jones to take him in the draft. It was all a joke, but it got some attention. Now another defensive end in the draft might have eyes for Dallas.