Cowboys WR gambles in 2022 were too many, warning for 2023

Roster building in the salary cap era involves a certain degree of risk. Certainties are expensive and teams like the Cowboys can only employ so many before they exhaust their resources.

Jerry and Stephen Jones know this all too well. They seem to enjoy bargain hunting and more often than not, lean on it during free agency. Instead of signing proven players at or around their professional peak (who cost a premium), they seek out players who are in less demand and have enough questions surrounding them that their value is suppressed.

The Cowboys have had their share of success employing this method of roster building. They’ve hit on players like Jayron Kearse, Malik Hooker and a handful of others in their free agent bargain hunting over the years.

Low-cost/possible high-reward alternatives can be viewed as lottery tickets. Their flaws and specific circumstances make them inexpensive to sign and therefore the consequences of their failure are limited.

Recapping the WR decisions

The Cowboys acted boldly last off-season. In an effort to save money, they dispatched Amari Cooper to Cleveland for a fifth-round pick (which would become OT Matt Waletzko) and they allowed Cedrick Wilson to go to Miami without much of a fight.

Dallas re-signed the injured Michael Gallup to a five-year, $57,500,000 contract and then signed free agent receiver James Washington to a very modest 1-year, $1,035,000 deal.

Gallup’s $11,500,000 average annual salary was almost half of what Cooper was signed for and Washington’s $1,035,000 tag was $6 million cheaper than Wilson’s deal in Miami. Both replacements represented big savings for the Cowboys.

But with Gallup’s recovery likely to bleed into the 2022 season, Dallas was prepared to start the new season without three of their top four receivers from a season before. Replacing all of that production would be no small task.

The Cowboys likely knew as much, which is why they scouted multiple receivers with their first pick in the 2022 NFL Draft.

They may not be able to cleanly replace Cooper and Wilson’s production but perhaps Washington and a rookie combined with improvement from CeeDee Lamb and a speedy recovery from Gallup would come close.

Too many gambles

The Cowboys banked on four things working out to replace their missing receiver production:

1. They gambled Gallup would bounce back from a significant knee injury in a short period of time

2. They gambled Washington was held back by suspect QB play in Pittsburgh and was better than his numbers indicated

3. They gambled a rookie WR would contribute meaningfully in his first year

4. They gambled Lamb would continue his assent and become a legitimate WR1

It’s safe to say only the fourth gamble worked out in their favor. Lamb had a phenomenal third season in Dallas, setting career highs in receptions, yardage and touchdowns. He met and possibly even exceeded expectations for 2022. But after Lamb is where the gambles started to go bust.

Gallup struggled in his return following his February ACL surgery, producing the lowest yardage output in his career. Washington fell to his own injuries early and then after returning for two weeks on the backend of the season, was released with zero catches on his Cowboys resume.

Rookie draft pick Jalen Tolbert struggled in his first year in the NFL, seeing action in just eight games and only pulling in two receptions for 12 yards.

Midway through the season, it was fairly apparent the Cowboys’ gambles had not paid off and new avenues would have to be explored to replace the missing production.

Dallas hosted Odell Beckham Jr and later signed T.Y. Hilton in their quest to replace Cooper and Wilson. While Hilton provided a few key plays late down the stretch, it wasn’t enough to move the passing game back to 2021 levels.

Gambles are good

The lesson to learn isn’t that gambles are bad or the Cowboys are flawed in their individual evaluations. Gambles are good. In fact, for reason stated in the intro, gambles are necessary. The problem is when too many gambles are made in the same area of concern.

Dallas banked on too many wild cards to solve their massive hole at receiver. They banked on Lamb just naturally improving,which, thankfully, he did.

They banked on Gallup bouncing back in record time. They banked on a rookie to hit the ground running. And they banked on a player who wasn’t in much demand to be better than the rest of the league thought he was.

Individually, these gambles were fine. Collectively, they were dangerous and the results foreseeable. They were too many gambles at the same position of concern.

The Cowboys are sure to make their fair share of gambles again this off-season. The hope is that too many gambles aren’t made to the same position of concern.

Story originally appeared on Cowboys Wire