Cowboys hire Steve Shimko as offensive assistant – Nick Harris, DallasCowboys.com
The Cowboys are still making coaching moves.
The Dallas Cowboys have hired Boston College offensive coordinator Steve Shimko as an offensive assistant, the team can confirm, after Will Harriger was hired away from the Cowboys’ coaching staff this offseason to be the quarterbacks coach for the Carolina Panthers.
Shimko reunites with offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer in Dallas after the two spent two seasons together in Seattle in 2018 and 2019. Shimko’s prior experience includes working as a graduate assistant at Rutgers, Western Michigan and Georgia before landing on-field at Garden City Community College as the JUCO powerhouse’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2016. He would hold that position for two years before moving onto the Seahawks for two seasons. Boston College then came calling as he served as tight ends coach in 2020 and 2021, quarterbacks coach in 2022 and offensive coordinator for the Eagles this past season.
In his one season as coordinator, the Eagles were 80th in FBS with 24.8 points per game and 68th in total offense with 381.2 yards per game. The team finished 7-6 with a win over No. 23-ranked SMU in the Fenway Bowl.
Agent’s Take: Dak Prescott and other NFL quarterbacks who can sign a lucrative deal in 2024 – Joel Corry, CBSSports.com
Corry, a former sports agent, uses Joe Burrow’s record 2023 contract as a starting point to outline Dak Prescott’s probable 2024 contract extension.
Last year was a banner one for the quarterback market. [Joe] Burrow received a five-year, $275 million contract extension, averaging $55 million per year, from the Cincinnati Bengals.
If Prescott empowers his representatives to do as they see fit, the end result will likely be Prescott becoming the league’s highest-paid player while establishing new benchmarks for the most important contract metrics besides Watson’s $230 million fully guaranteed, even though last season ended prematurely on an extremely sour note.
It wouldn’t be surprising for Prescott’s camp to use Burrow’s average over his first three new years to justify $60 million per year. Overall, the top of the quarterback market increased in 2023 by 9.41% from 2022. A $60 million-per-year extension would be a 9.09% increase over Burrow’s deal.
New deals for Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb top Cowboys’ biggest offseason issues – Ralph Vacciano, FOX Sports
Another top-of-the-market deal for the Cowboys, this time for CeeDee Lamb?
Jones has made it pretty clear that he thinks Lamb is the best receiver in the NFL, and Lamb has made it clear he wants to be paid like that. That’ll mean a deal in the range of $30 million per season. And he’s surely worth it after breaking the Cowboys franchise single-season records for receptions and yards (135-1,749), scoring 12 touchdowns and carrying the offense for much of the season.
“He is everything that I thought he would be,” Jones said on his weekly radio spot in January. “He has certainly met the mark of everything that we thought he could be when we drafted (him in the first round in 2020). And I think he’s just getting started.”
But will the Cowboys extend his contract now? Lamb is scheduled to make $17.9 million in 2024 on the fifth-year option on his rookie contract. Conceivably, a well-structured deal could chop $10 million off that cap number, which seemingly makes it an easy decision for a cap-strapped team like the Cowboys. They just might have to make him the highest-paid receiver in history to get it done.
Cowboys, Bills among NFL teams most in jeopardy of losing key players – Nate Davis, USAToday
Handing out one record-setting deal after another means Dallas will bid farewell this offseason to major contributors.
The NFC East titlists won’t necessarily be running it back, their laundry list of key free agents including DE Dorance Armstrong, C Tyler Biadasz, CB Stephon Gilmore, RB Tony Pollard and LT Tyron Smith. Meanwhile, QB Dak Prescott is carrying a nearly $60 million cap hit next season, the final one before he’s scheduled to explore free agency – this at a time when All-Pro WR CeeDee Lamb and OLB Micah Parsons need extensions. Did we mention the Cowboys are already more than $20 million over next year’s cap, too?
Cowboys to Sign Raiders’ RB Josh Jacobs in ‘Ideal’ Free Agency Move, Predicts ESPN – Anthony Licciardi, Sports Illustrated
Raiders’ Pro Bowl RB Josh Jacobs might be the answer for an underwhelming run game.
According to ESPN’s best free agent fits, Las Vegas Raiders running back Josh Jacobs should be next in line to join the Cowboys’ esteemed list of star running backs.
“He has been a volume grinder for the Raiders, with the low pad level to finish runs and the quickness to make defenders miss,” Matt Bowen wrote. “Jacobs, who led the NFL in rushing in 2022, could also be utilized as a receiving option for Dak Prescott on swings, screens and unders.”
Jacobs is powerful, much like other names that the Cowboys could turn to in Green Bay Packers back AJ Dillon and Tennessee Titans star Derrick Henry. The ability to offer more in the red zone and when yards get tough is something Pollard frequently lacked.
Furthermore, Jacobs, per Pro Football Focus’ projections, is only slated to make $3.5 million more than Pollard ($11.5 million compared to $8 million) for the next three years.
Open Market: Cowboys’ free agency options at DE – DallasCowboys.com staff, DallasCowboys.com
New pass rushers may be brought in under the Cowboys’ new defensive scheme.
The 20 Milli Club: Josh Allen, Brian Burns, Danielle Hunter, Brian Burns – I’ll begin by getting these gentlemen mentioned and out of the way, because I see no roadmap to any outside free agent landing an AAS (average annual salary) from the Cowboys of anywhere near $20 million, and that’s the market price (or very near it) for this group, and particularly considering the fact both Parsons and Lawrence are likely to be extended no later than next offseason — combined with the hope on Sam Williams for the future.
A.J. Epenesa: Sticking with the more realistic options for the Cowboys, I can’t get enough of picturing Epenesa in Dallas as a plug-and-play replacement for Armstrong in the event the latter heads out of town. Epenesa is an impact rotational pass rusher, much like Armstrong is, and the two have mounted similar campaigns over the past two seasons. Epenesa has 13 sacks, three forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries but, and hold onto your britches here, he also has two interceptions (!!) and a defensive touchdown in only three combined starts since 2022.
Za’Darius Smith: If Epenesa can be viewed as a perfect replacement for Armstrong that adds the element of interceptions to the mix at defensive end, then Smith can be viewed as one who could come in and instantly heal the potential loss of Fowler — a swap of talented, still-productive veteran pass rushers. I was completely in on the possibility of the Cowboys trading for Smith in 2022, but it was instead the Browns that made that deal (though Smith did say he also had interest in Dallas, hint hint).
2024 NFL offseason: All 32 teams’ WR situations ahead of free agency, draft – Kevin Patra, NFL.com
Changes are afoot in the Dallas WR room.
The most obvious move for Jerry Jones’ club is parting with Gallup, who has three years remaining on his five-year, $57.5 million contract. The wideout hasn’t been the same since his 2021 knee injury. He hasn’t hit the 425-yard receiving mark in either of the past two seasons. That’s simply not worth a $13.85 million cap hit at this stage. Unfortunately, for Dallas, outright cutting him saves next to nothing ($800,000), so the team would have to use the post-June 1 mechanism, which would save $9.5 million on the cap this year. That won’t help Jones go all in early in free agency (as they’d have to carry Gallup’s cap number to June), but it would relieve some of the issues down the line. Elsewhere: Will this be the year Tolbert finally breaks out after coming up shy last season? Or will the Cowboys bring in another mid-round pick hoping to strike gold behind Lamb and Cooks?
Why the release of Michael Gallup is a foregone conclusion for the Cowboys this offseason – Dan Rogers, BloggingTheBoys.com
The former 1,000-yard receiver likely won’t be returning to Dallas in 2024.
It was around this time two years ago the Dallas Cowboys had to make a big decision about what they wanted to do at wide receiver. The team had rising star CeeDee Lamb under player control for three more seasons, but that was the only given for the team’s wide receiver group. The Cowboys needed to decide if they wanted to continue to pay Amari Cooper $20 million a year despite a slight dip in production where he was coming off his worst per-game totals in receptions, yards, and catch percentage over his past four seasons with the team. If not, the Cowboys could choose a cheaper route and pay unrestricted free agent Michael Gallup after already proving he could be a viable WR2 for this offense.
Ultimately, the team went with the latter as they traded away Cooper in a salary dump move and signed Gallup to a five-year, $57.5 million deal. From a financial sense, this move looked smart. Cooper, while still very good, was now the second fiddle to Lamb and the team felt like they wouldn’t be losing much with Gallup at WR2 at almost half the price. And Gallup’s $11.5 million annual cost would look better and better with each new season.
In 2022, he only had 39 catches and 424 yards across 14 games, putting up just 30.3 yards per game, his worst per-game outage over his five-year career. Most of us chalked that up to the slow recovery as he was coming off a knee injury in the regular-season finale the year prior.
With another year removed from his knee surgery, fans expected bigger things from him this past season, but despite playing in all 17 games, his numbers were even worse. He only had 34 catches for 418 yards with a new career-low per-game outage of just 24.6 yards a game. His production had become just 33% of the prime Gallup we were seeing back in 2019.
Something is just not right with Gallup. It’s sad to see things play out this way. Gallup is such a high-character guy and his teammates love him. He also brought a unique flare to the Cowboys’ receiving game. Whether he was galloping through traffic with that hitch in his giddy-up, high-pointing the ball on contested passes, or showing remarkable concentration on sideline toe drags, he never ceased to amaze us with fun highlights over his career.
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