In this pass-happy era of the NFL, a team can never have too much help in the secondary. For the Dallas Cowboys, a lot of help was necessary this offseason given the lack of overall talent, depth and the advancing age of the players in-house. Thus it wasn’t surprising to see the team going after Brandon Carr as one of the top cornerbacks available on the market. But with a $50 million contract, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones admits the team “overpaid” to grab the player they wanted
“We know we overpaid to get Carr. Not overpay — we paid retail,” Jones acknowledged last week at the NFL meetings.
Carr and Cortland Finnegan were widely considered to be the best players available. The Chiefs were hoping to keep Carr off the market, but he became price prohibitive this late in the process compared to locking him up a year ago. The Chiefs signed Stanford Routt as insurance instead and let Carr go to the highest bidder. Yet Carr’s experience and youth were exactly what the Cowboys needed so they paid what was needed.
Jones insists, however, that the Cowboys are in fine financial position going forward into the NFL Draft and beyond.
“If a situation comes along, we’ll be able to act on it if we want to,” he said. “We want have a restriction if the right situation comes along. We were able to get all of that done plus have the money we need for the draft.”It was well-planned, well-thought out and it happened that way. In free agency, there is always the problem of no matter how well you try to execute, no matter how well you plan, there is another influence that can make it for you and it’s somebody else paying too much or offering too much so you have to do with less. We didn’t have to do that this time."