Cowboys 'Never Called Me!' Says Derrick Henry; Why Not?! What's Jerry's 'All-In' RB Plan?
FRISCO - After the departure of Tony Pollard, the Dallas Cowboys are in the market for a running back. And did they look around ever corner and under every stone ... or even right down the street, where two-time NFL rushing champ Derrick Henry happens to own a Dallas mansion.
"The Cowboys,'' Henry said after inking his new two-year deal with the Baltimore Ravens, "never called at all.''
Oh my.
Now, without Elliott or Pollard, someone else will be starting at running back for the Cowboys for the first time in a long time.
Only once in the last 100 regular season games - going back to Christmas Eve 2017 - has someone other than one of those two started in the backfield. The exception was Rod Smith on Dec. 30, 2018.
And why couldn't it have been Henry? CowboysSI.com has been slapping down bogus Henry-to-Dallas rumors for three years, most recently ones stirred up by the "news'' that he "just bought a home here.'' In fact, he already lives here in the offseason, as he noted in his MadDog Radio interview.
"Yeah, of course,'' Henry said when asked if he would've considered Dallas. "That's where I stay in the offseason. Kind of on the backend of my career, that's a great organization and it would've been a great opportunity.''
We're not saying Dallas did zero homework here; maybe the Cowboys are so insistent on giving out only one-year contracts ("Blow It Up!'') that they justified here not even making a phone call to Henry.
But ... one phone call? Just in case?
"Not at all. I don't really know what's going on over there, but there wasn't any chance," Henry said, then turning to expressing happiness in joining the contending Ravens. "Baltimore had shown the most interest and I'm somewhere I wanted to be. I was glad that we got it done. But the Cowboys never called at all."
The Cowboys have been linked to J.K. Dobbins and A.J. Dillon after missing out on one of the big names that were to hit the open market. Henry (Ravens), Saquon Barkley (Eagles), D'Andre Swift (Bears), Josh Jacobs (Packers), Austin Ekeler (Commanders) and Aaron Jones (Vikings) all fell off the shelf before Dallas could even blink.
Meanwhile, led by our Mike Fisher, we've been fair to the Dallas front office in fighting off the false claims that the Jones family is in the Bahamas or on a yacht somewhere ... while at the same time wondering if this Henry thing isn't "Honey Badger 2.0'' for asleep-at-the-wheel leadership.
Because ... What if ... Derrick Henry would've said "yes''?
Dallas has lost a plethora of players already just three days into the open market. But as it relates specifically to running back? Yes, Dallas can (will?) draft one. Maybe Dallas will sign on. But otherwise? If there is a master plan in place for Jones & Co. - again, outside of "Blow It Up!'' - it's hard to imagine it is a very good one. ... if it doesn't even include a just-in-case phone call to a star living right down the street from The Star.
