Tyron's 'A Man's Man!' The 1 Thing To Change Cowboys Mind About Signing All-Pro Smith
FRISCO - It was essentially a foregone conclusion. The Dallas Cowboys weren't going to overspend early in NFL free agency ... perennial Pro Bowl left tackle Tyron Smith was going to be highly-coveted in the process.
The first "foregone'' has come true.
The second "foregone''? As we write this on Thursday, four days into the process, Tyron is still waiting.
Tyron and Jerry
And maybe there is now a bend in the path after it was assumed - and not just by fans and the media, but by those directly involved - that Tyron's brilliant time in Dallas was over.
"The door is open," said COO Stephen Jones on Thursday before ladling on the praise. "Tyron Smith is gonna be a Hall of Fame football player. He's had an amazing career and we certainly haven't shut the door on a continued career here in Dallas. ... He's ... one of the greatest left tackles to play the game. No one feels better about Tyron Smith than this organization.''
Nice. Do they "feel better'' than they did a couple of weeks ago when the divorce papers were being drawn up? So it seems ... But a deal-breaker probably still looms.
While no other team has blown away Tyron with an offer, the Cowboys are clearly in "one-year contract'' mode. We can view Tyron as being a $10 million APY guy or more. But do other teams see him that way? And will they give him a multi-year deal, which he surely wants?
Because we bet the Dallas Cowboys - with our theoretical "Blow It Up!'' rebuild looming - will not give the 33-year-old Tyron Smith a multi-year deal.
Jones issued an interesting analysis of Tyron when he said, "We have nothing but big-time thoughts about Tyron and what he's all about. ... He's a man's man.''
What exactly does that mean? We know that Smith, who has spent the last 13 seasons here earning eight Pro Bowl nods, five All-Pro team honors and a spot on the NFL's 2010s All-Decade Team, has been spectacular. We also know, as CowboysSI.com has reported often, that Tyron's bond with the Jones family is a special one.
Is "Tyron's a man's man'' a pointed appeal to Smith to "take one for the team''? Or just a nice compliment offered in lieu of a big payday?
The Cowboys only have $2 million in cap space at the moment, but that is - as Jerry Jones likes to say - "fungible.'' The Cowboys, for all their (unmanly?) whining about cap restraints, can sign Tyron if they wish to. And if they make such a choice? Tyron may have to evaluate the semi-open-door offer of just a one-year deal.
