Restructuring Tony Romo’s contract is not necessary for Dallas Cowboys
By Nick Ziegler
The Dallas Cowboys have become famous over the past few seasons for their struggles with dealing with the salary cap. With this offseason starting, there is some panic in Dallas about how they can move money to sign their big-name free agents. And Tony Romo’s contract once again is drawing attention.
Last season was a total disaster for the Cowboys in terms of cap space. It was a main reason they lost one of their staples on defense in DeMarcus Ware, who was released and would eventually sign a three-year deal with the Broncos.
A huge restructure of Romo’s contract enabled the Cowboys to be able to get under the cap last season, as they turned $12.5 million of Romo’s $13.5 base salary into a signing bonus, which helped their cap number last season.
This upcoming season, Romo is set to become the highest paid player since the Washington Redskins handed DT Albert Haynesworth a ridiculous $24,752,941 in 2010. Romo could surpass that easily as he is set to make $27,333,000 in 2015, with a $17 million base figure.
There has been plenty of talk about another restructure coming for Romo, but Stephen Jones seems to understand past mistakes made by the Cowboys when it comes to cap space.
“Obviously you don’t like to mortgage your future if you can help it,” Jones said last week at the Senior Bowl, as documented by Todd Archer of ESPNDallas.com. “We started making the move toward being a younger team and going a different direction in terms of pushing money out, so we’d prefer not to do that, but at the same time every situation has ramifications and you have to make tough decisions sometimes. I don’t think there’s an exact science, ‘Hey, we’re going to do it or not do it.’”
It was expected that a Romo restructure was almost certainly going to happen in Dallas in order to re-sign Dez Bryant and or DeMarco Murray, but the Cowboys don’t have to set themselves back cap-wise in order to sign their two stars.
If Dallas decides to they can save money elsewhere without touching Romo’s contract. They can free up enough money to sign either Murray or Bryant long-term, while placing the franchise tag on one or the other.
The franchise tag can be a great weapon for the Cowboys to use this season. With some questions about Murray’s durability and Bryant’s off-the-field issues, a one-year deal has no risk for the Cowboys.
Not restructuring Romo’s deal seems like the smart thing to do for Dallas. A restructure just pushes problems back and does not make money owed to Romo disappear.
Romo certainly looks like he still has some great years left in him despite a bad back, as in 2014 he had probably his best season as a NFL QB at 35-years old.
The most important thing for Romo and the Cowboys will be to keep their great young offensive line together. With that great unit they can plug an average running back behind it and make him certainly serviceable. As was the case in 2014, Romo showed he can still pick a defense apart when he’s not under duress.