5 players the Dallas Cowboys gave up on way too early

5. Terrell Owens, WR

Say what you want about this one being a stretch, I think the Dallas Cowboys gave up on Terrell Owens way too soon.

For that matter, you could argue the 49ers and Eagles gave up on Owens too soon. But for the Dallas Cowboys, the timing of Owens’ release was really unfortunate.

Owens has stated in the past that he felt blindsided by the Cowboys’ decision to release him in the 2009 offseason. He was coming off of a year in which he had just caught 69 passes for 1,052 yards and 10 touchdowns. Part of the motivation to trade Owens came from the Cowboys’ odd and not exactly beloved decision the year prior to trade for former first-round pick Roy Williams of the Detroit Lions.

The Cowboys made a blockbuster deal to acquire Williams from Detroit, then sign him to a six-year, $54 million deal just a few days after the trade. Unfortunately, Williams was nowhere near the type of impact player for the Cowboys that Terrell Owens had been, even in Owens’ later years.

Owens, seemingly an ageless wonder, caught 59 passes and five touchdowns on a horrendous Buffalo Bills team in 2009, and then went to the Cincinnati Bengals in 2010 where he caught 72 passes for 983 yards and nine touchdowns.

Roy Williams, by comparison, averaged 37.5 receptions for 563 yards and 6 TDs in his two full seasons with the Dallas Cowboys before he was let go and finished his career with the Chicago Bears.

The decision to let go of Terrell Owens, who had tremendous chemistry with Tony Romo at the time, was as nonsensical as it gets. And Owens could have really helped that ascending Cowboys team, which won 11 games in 2009 and made it to the playoffs…where Roy Williams caught just 5 passes for 59 yards in two games.