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The Dallas Cowboys had a good season last year Youth Chidobe Awuzie Jersey , but it wasn’t enough. With a team full of young talent, expectations are high and this squad has a great chance to be something special in the near future. But what exactly needs to be done to get there? Yesterday,r to take home the big prize, today we’ll cap it off with five more.5. Stay cheap in free agent spendingACTION ITEM: Stephen JonesThe New England Patriots were smart in signing Buffalo Bills Pro Bowl cornerback Stephon Gilmore. He’s getting $13 million a year, but he’s a good player. The Los Angeles Rams got great contribution from their one-year, $14 million rental in Ndamukong Suh. Both teams were active in free agency and found key players to help strengthen their team. And with over $50 million in cap space this season, many fans are calling for this to be the year thatthe Cowboys make a splash in free agency.Stop it.Landing a great free agent is wonderful, but it’s risky business. Team’s don’t willingly just let star talent get away. In most cases, the new team overpays for the actual worth of the player. Can the Cowboys afford to take some chances? Sure, but keep in mind - this cautious approach to free agency is why the Cowboys have the money to pay their own star players like DeMarcus Lawrence, Amari Cooper, and several other young stars with soon-to-have expiring rookie contracts.Dallas will sign some free agents, but they need to look for cheap fillers like Cameron Fleming, Antwaun Woods, Joe Looney, Joe Thomas, and Brett Maher. All of these guys played a role on the team with some of them logging some extensive snaps last year. Keep filling holes will low-cost free agent signings and save the big money for the stars. This is a recipe that is setting this team up nicely for years to come. 4. Disguise your schemesACTION ITEM: Jason GarrettThe Cowboys are really close to having the talent to go toe-to-toe with the games best teams. The have Pro Bowlers all over the roster. That’s why it’s frustrating when opponents win battles as a result of some mental lapse by the Cowboys. When teams did have success against Dallas last year, more times than not it wasn’t attributed to being outplayed, but rather just being out of position. The Cowboys have their own fair share of crafty moments when they out-smart the opposition. You don’t make it to the Divisional Round without doing that. But there are still times where the players aren’t put in the best position possible and that falls on the coaches. In the playoff game against the Rams, Sean McVay ran a lot of motion and were constantly adjusting to how the Cowboys defense moved around. They even were tipped off by the slightest of tells from the Cowboys players prior to the snap. In the poker game of football, McVay’s group was making better reads that Garrett and company. The coaching staff got out-coached. And let’s not forget how the Seattle Seahawks picked up on hand signals that allowed them to figure out Kris Richard’s coverage schemes, resulting in a huge 52-yard touchdown play to Tyler Lockett in Week 3.Opponents pick up on these types of things all the time and you can tell football players are observant creatures when you hear Tony Romo constantly predicting plays. This is more common than people realize and the real challenge is stopping it even when you know what’s coming. But the Cowboys need to be a little more discrete about what they are showing teams so they aren’t at a disadvantage before the ball is even snapped.3. Improve the receiving groupACTION ITEM: Sanjay LalLast year was phase one of the wide receiver overhaul and boy was it a big one. Last offseason; Dez Bryant was released, Brice Butler left (and returned, and left) in free agency http://www.cowboyscheapauthenticstore.com/chris-jones-jersey-cheap , and Ryan Switzer was traded. Terrance Williams was still around, but he only played three games after injuring his foot and having some off-field trouble. So, out with those guys and in comes: Allen Hurns, Deonte Thompson, Michael Gallup, and Tavon Austin. The team also traded for Amari Cooper midway through the season.It’s a new-look receiving group and it’s unclear if the last two WR’s from the 2017 team, Williams and Cole Beasley, will be a part of it. The team could still be looking to add some more fire power at the position this offseason. The draft will feature several talented young pass catchers. Maybe they look for a speedster who can be a vertical threat? Maybe they’ll look for a new slot receiver?Not only does the team have another draft to work with, but last year’s sixth-round pick, Cedrick Wilson, should be ready to go after missing the season with a shoulder injury. Expect this group to be even stronger in 2019.2. Get Zeke some helpACTION ITEM: Will McClayEzekiel Elliott is the team’s workload back and that’s exactly how he’s used. Last year, he played in 83% of the offensive snaps and whether it was on the ground or catching passes, there was a whole lot of mileage put on the team’s young star running back. While Zeke’s durability is unquestionable, the extra work took a toll on him. There were several times where he limped on the field as he battled through foot and knee injuries. The team could alleviate some of the strain on Elliott by getting him a fresh set of legs to spell him at times during the game.Rod Smith is a free agent and it’s unclear if the team will bring him back. Maybe the team looks to the draft to bring a new running back on the team. A nice receiving back with somespeed in the open field could be a good asset for a team that is trying to add a spark to the offense.1. Pay the starsACTION ITEM: Jerry JonesThe Cowboys have this “process” where they draft the right kind of guys, coach them up, and then hope they become talented enough players to help them win football games. This process requires a keen eye for seeking those players who can maximize their potential. It also requires a coaching staff that is competent enough to develop their players. And finally, it requires the funds to retain the players when they have demonstrated that they are worthy of keeping around.The Cowboys have the tools in place to do all of those things. Thanks to cautious free agent spending, the team has over $50 million in cap space entering the new season and that already includes the $13 million that Amari Cooper is already on the books for. They have a lot of cap space, but that money will be put to good use as the team has some young Pro Bowlers that they need to get re-signed.Jerry Jones has a tendency to drag out re-signing his stars and that’s not because he’s wavering on paying them. He’s just trying to get a cheaper price. Even the unquestionably talented Zack Martin didn’t get a new deal until he was entering his fifth-year option season. So don’t be concerned if certain guys aren’t inked right away, because they’re going to be eventually. For now, Jones needs to focus on getting DeMarcus Lawrence’s contract done. Jones’ has drug that out enough and it’s time to pay him. And look for Cooper to be next as there is really no reason to wait. He’s already counting heavily against the cap so the team wouldn’t be saving much by letting his current deal play out.The Cowboys have done the hard part in finding these great players. Now they just have to pay them. In late August last year, I wrote an article titled “Why 2018 Cowboys rookies may contribute more in their rookie year than most previous draft classes.” In the article, I looked at how much the 2018 rookie class could be expected to contribute to the Cowboys’ 2018 season in terms of snaps played, and concluded that the rookie class would play 12.1% of all offensive and defensive snaps Cheap Sean Lee Jersey , which would make it the third-best rookie class since 2008 - at least in terms of first-year snap counts.The projections for the individual players were naturally off versus their actual snaps counts, but the projection for overall snap percentage proved to be remarkably close to the actual snaps: I had projected the rookies to play on 12.1% of snaps and they ended up playing that exact percentage of snaps.Here are the regular season snap counts for the 2018 rookie class in detail: It’s widely held that a good draft class yields two solid starters. Two starters may not be a great draft, but it is certainly a solid draft. However, those two starters are not necessarily expected to be starters in their first season. The Cowboys got at least three, maybe four starters out of this draft class, and that’s with almost half the rookie class never playing a snap. That’s a success any way you look at it.Number of starts can be a fickle metric to track over time, so I’ll stick with the number of snaps as they are easier to compare over the years. To compare this year’s rookie class to previous classes, I used two sets of data. For 2007-11, I used the numbers from Pro Football Focus, and for 2012-2018 I used the official league numbers as recorded by Football Outsiders. There are minor technical discrepancies between the two sets of numbers, but for our purposes the two data sets are sufficiently comparable.Here’s an overview of the previous 12 rookie classes and their total number of snaps. The snap numbers in the table are the offensive or defensive snaps, special teams snaps are not included. Where applicable, undrafted rookies are included in the rookie class totals. This short timeline of the Cowboys’ rookie classes divides neatly into three parts. From 2007-2009, the Cowboys got almost nothing from their rookie classes. 2009 is widely seen as the worst draft in recent memory, but the 2008 draft may ultimately have been even more disappointing considering that the Cowboys had two first-round picks and a second-rounder in that draft. Over the three years, these three rookie classes averaged 4.0% of the snaps in their rookie seasons, the equivalent of 0.9 starters per rookie class.Things started looking up a little between 2010-12, though those rookie classes saw a lot of injuries to players in their rookie seasons, which affected their overall numbers. Dez Bryant and Sean Lee both missed significant time in their 2010 rookie seasons, as did Bruce Carter and DeMarco Murray a year later. In 2012, the trade-up for Morris Claiborne cost the Cowboys their second-round pick, which potentially could have given the Cowboys some extra snaps if they had kept it. But despite the injuries, these three rookie classes averaged 7.3% of the total snaps, or about 1.6 starters per rookie class.The Cowboys finally hit their stride with the 2013 rookie class (2013 coincidentally was also the year Will McClay was promoted to assistant director of player personnel). That year’s snap count is very high in part due to the quality of the rookies Youth Joe Looney Jersey , in part also because the Cowboys traded down for an extra pick that netted them Terrance Williams. They followed that up with two solid classes in 2014 and 2015, before cleaning up the 2016 draft by selecting four immediate starters in Ezekiel Elliott, Maliek Collins, Dak Prescott, and Anthony Brown (never mind that Jaylon Smith didn’t play a single snap that year). Add more strong rookie classes after that and the last six years have been very good for the Cowboys, with an average of 11.8% of the snaps in the rookie seasons, which translates to a cool 2.6 starters per rookie class.There are Cowboys fans who will look at this data (and any other analysis showing the Cowboys doing something well) and gleefully point out since it didn’t help the Cowboys win a Super Bowl, it can’t be important. But that’s not the point. The point here is that the Cowboys have been building a solid foundation of young talent that should make them consistent contenders again, even if it takes a lot more than just a few strong rookie classes to win the Super Bowl. But from a talent perspective, the Cowboys are on the right track. But it’s not just the strong rookie seasons that show the Cowboys are on the right track. Three years (and sometimes even more) is the standard usually used to fully evaluate a rookie class. Which is why we’re now going to look at how the snap percentages of each season’s rookie class have progressed over the years.The snap data I have available only goes back to 2007, so I don’t have snap numbers for the rookie seasons of rookie classes prior to 2007. But I do have the second year of the 2006 class and the third year of the 2005 class, which is about as far back as we want to go anyway.What this allows me to do is to show how different rookie classes performed in terms of snap percentage in each of their first five years in the league, which I’ve summarized in the table below. To make the table easier to read, it is color-coded as follows:Blue = 3 or more startersGreen = 2-3 startersOrange = 1-2 startersRed = less than 1 starterFor this analysis, let’s assume that adding the equivalent of two starters (or 9.0% of all snaps) to the roster is a good target for a rookie class, and getting the equivalent of three starters (13.5% of all snaps) is outstanding. How to read the table: Take the 2013 rookie class as an example, which started out very strong with 15.3% of all snaps. Travis Frederick, Terrance Williams, and J.J. Wilcox were strong early contributors, but also UDFA Jeff Heath, who was pressed into a starting role in his rookie season due to injuries and ended up starting nine games. In 2014 and 2015, the percentages dropped slightly as Heath was relegated to a backup role. In 2016, Wilcox lost significant snaps to Byron Jones, which dropped the snap count to 11.9%.In 2017 Heath was back as a starter and compensated the departures of Wilcox and Gavin Escobar http://www.cowboyscheapauthenticstore.com/geoff-swaim-jersey-cheap , who both left Dallas after their rookie deals were up, leaving the rookie class with a solid 11.3% of all snaps. From the data accumulated above, it looks like adding the equivalent of two starters (about 9% of all snaps) to the roster is a good target for the first year of a rookie class. The Cowboys had missed that mark for six straight years from 2007-12, but have hit it every year since.The numbers get better in the second year, where the Cowboys have hit the 2+ starter mark every year since 2010. Also since 2010, the rookie classes show a sea of green and blue in years two, three, and four, which is exactly how you want it to be.The fifth-year drop in playing time contribution is largely due to the way most rookie contracts are structured. Most players reach free agency after four years and can then move on to other teams, so a drop in snaps is to be expected to some degree. But that drop can also mean that the players from that rookie class simply weren’t good enough to warrant a second, and bigger, contract, or turned out to be too expensive to retain.The data in the color-enhanced table above provides a nice visual representation of the turnaround the Cowboys have made in the Garrett era in terms of talent acquisition, even if it may not have been enough to secure them a postseason berth every year.But all that young talent is beginning to pay off in front of our very eyes, as David Moore of the DMN explains:All of this should put the Cowboys in a position to succeed for a long time, because as Doug Farrar pointed out in Sports Illustrated a while back, “when it comes to team-building in the long term, football is for the young.”In 2011, Seattle was the second-youngest team in the NFL. Two years later, the Seahawks had built a championship team whose average age was the fourth-lowest in the league.In 2019, the Cowboys are the youngest team in the playoffs and just mopped the floor with the Seahawks. The championship window is open. Custom Los Angeles Rams Jerseys