NFL: Cowboys Did Not Tamper With Earl Thomas
Earl Thomas‘ flirtations with the Cowboys have been well-documented. The Cowboys, some say, have flirted back, but the league found no wrongdoing on the part of the organization, as Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets. 
Over the last year, Thomas has professed his love to the Cowboys in a number of ways. He bowed to the Dallas bench after an interception in September, cut plans short to catch the Cowboys on TV, and likely leaked further word of his interest to the press through backchannels.
Meanwhile, it was alleged that Cowboys staff members made comments to Thomas before a game this year that may have violated tampering laws. It’s unclear whether such comments were actually made, but in any event, the league will not pursue the allegations.
The Cowboys flirted with the idea of a Thomas trade, but all trade discussions were brought to a screeching halt when Thomas was carted off of the field with a season-ending leg fracture. While being carted off of the field, Thomas flipped off his own bench.
After wrapping up his four-year, $40MM extension, Thomas will be an unrestricted free agent in March.
No Extension Planned For Jason Garrett?
As the Cowboys plan to make two recent backup quarterbacks their core offensive assistants, they are not planning an extension for their former backup-turned-longtime head coach.
After talk of a Jason Garrett extension surfaced earlier this month, nothing on that front is now being planned, Todd Archer of ESPN.com reports. No short- or long-term re-up is on tap at this time, per Archer. Garrett is going into the final season of his five-year, $30MM contract.
En route to the NFC East title, the Cowboys finished the season 7-1 and won a playoff game for the first time since the 2014 season. Garrett has been Dallas’ head coach since the 2010 season. He is now the NFL’s sixth-longest-tenured head coach. The five ahead of him — Bill Belichick, Sean Payton, Mike Tomlin, John Harbaugh and Pete Carroll — have each won Super Bowls, four of those coaches having been to at least two.
It would make sense for the Cowboys to apply pressure for Garrett to sustain success, as he enters his ninth full season as a head coach. He has not taken the Cowboys to back-to-back playoff brackets. The 52-year-old HC coached into a lame-duck year in 2014, when a 12-4 Cowboys team nearly voyaged to the NFC championship game. Garrett signed his current deal after the season. A similar timeline may have to occur this year, with Clarence Hill of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram tweeting another lame-duck season will be the franchise’s plan.
The Cowboys are tabbing 29-year-old Kellen Moore, who was still at Boise State when Garrett’s Dallas tenure began, to become the league’s youngest active OC. Moore is expected to call plays, leaving Garrett in his usual CEO role.
Cowboys Promote Kellen Moore To OC
The Cowboys have filled their offensive coordinator post, and it will be Kellen Moore who will take over for Scott Linehan. The team announced Moore, rumored to be the frontrunner for this post, will become an OC in his second season as a coach.
Jon Kitna will be the team’s new quarterbacks coach, taking over for Moore. The latter’s playing career did not conclude until after the 2017 season, and it is now fair to label Moore, at 29, as one of the fastest-rising assistants in NFL history.
Moore is expected to call plays next season, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (Twitter link). Jason Garrett was initially rumored to reclaim play-calling duties, but the Cowboys prefer their head coach in a CEO-type role on game days. Dallas will be taking a gamble on an inexperienced coach, who will be flanked by Kitna — a high school head coach until being brought back to Dallas this month. Moore and Kitna served in their new roles at the Pro Bowl, Albert Breer of SI.com tweets.
The Cowboys made Dak Prescott a major part of this process, and the three-year starter again gave Moore a ringing endorsement, despite his lack of coaching credentials.
“He can be crazy-creative,” Prescott said, via David Moore of the Dallas Morning News. “From the time he was a player to his time now, he sits over there, we’re watching plays and he’ll draw a play up and say, ‘Hey, this is a complement off that.’
“I mean that was the main reason I pushed for him to be the quarterback coach in the first place because I knew the intelligence he has in the game, how smart he is, how creative he can be. He’s a phenom when it comes to the game.”
Both Moore and Kitna, like Garrett, served as Cowboys backup quarterbacks for a time. Moore and Kitna started games with the team this decade. Kitna, 46, finished his career in 2011 as Tony Romo‘s backup, playing that role for two seasons. Moore was not turned to as frequently, last playing in a game in 2015. But the Cowboys kept the former Boise State standout around as a third-stringer through the 2017 campaign.
Over the past three years, the Cowboys’ offense regressed from fifth to 14th to 22nd — both in scoring and yardage — and the team wanted to promote from within to see if it could improve. No outside candidates were believed to have been interviewed, though tight ends coach Doug Nussmeier — a college OC from 2008-17 — will take on more responsibility.
Tony Romo To Hold Off On Coaching
Someday, Tony Romo hopes to be a coach, as David Moore of the Dallas Morning News tweets. But, for now, Romo likes being in the broadcast booth, which means that Cowboys fans hoping to see him as the team’s new offensive coordinator will have to cool their jets. 
[RELATED: Cowboys’ Ezekiel Elliott Considering Holdout?]
“Well, they’ll have to wait,” Romo said. “I’m sure one day I’ll coach. Right now, I’m happy with where I’m at.”
Romo retired from playing before the 2017 season, but the NFL world wasn’t convinced that his on-field days were over. Two years later, Romo has one of the top jobs in sports broadcasting, and pressure is mounting for him to take a job on the sidelines.
Romo admits his interest in coaching, but it’ll be hard for him to walk away from his current gig at CBS. Romo reportedly earns $4MM/year from the network and he’s expected to earn a significant bump on his next extension. If Romo earns, say, $6MM/year on his new CBS deal, it’s hard to imagine an NFL team topping that salary to hire him as an offensive coordinator.
Ezekiel Elliott Considering Holdout?
Todd Gurley‘s record-setting running back deal affected Le’Veon Bell‘s decision-making in Pittsburgh this year, and it may play a role in how Ezekiel Elliott proceeds in 2019.
The Cowboys’ All-Pro running back has one year remaining on his contract, but with the team having an easy fifth-year option decision coming, Elliott may be in a tough spot. Dallas has a host of extension-eligible players, five of whom — DeMarcus Lawrence, Dak Prescott, Amari Cooper and Byron Jones and Jaylon Smith— either a franchise tag candidate or entering a contract year. Elliott having two years of team control left may move him to the back of the re-up queue, despite Dallas brass’ goal of signing him long-term.
An Elliott holdout will be a risk, sources told Clarence Hill of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the longer this drags on this offseason. With the Cowboys having no incentive to pay Elliott now, there may be more noise on this front as the offseason unfolds.
While Gurley received his extension with two years remaining on his contract, Elliott is also in the same position Aaron Donald was in 2017. Donald held out and missed the Rams’ first two games en route to defensive player of the year acclaim.
Elliott, 23, is due $3.58MM in 2019. His fifth-year option would come in north of $10MM in 2020. But Gurley’s four-year, $57.5MM deal altered the market. With Elliott winning rushing titles in both of the seasons in which he was a full Cowboys participant, the leverage he will have is removing himself from an offense dependent on his talents.
The Cowboys stand to hold more than $54MM in cap space and have taken care of three Elliott blockers, the most recent coming with Zack Martin‘s guard-record contract in 2018. Considering Elliott’s importance to the team, usage rate and the non-Gurley running backs’ position within the NFL salary landscape, a holdout would certainly make sense to see if the Cowboys would buckle and pay him this year rather than in 2020.
A Lawrence holdout also may be on the horizon, per Hill. Although, this could be expected given that the Cowboys may franchise him again. Lawrence signed his tender immediately last year and attended Cowboys offseason workouts, however.
Demarcus Lawrence To Undergo Shoulder Surgery
Cowboys Pro Bowl defensive end Demarcus Lawrence is expected to undergo offseason surgery on his shoulder, though a time and place has yet to be discussed, the Dallas Morning News’ Jon Machota tweets. 
Lawrence has reportedly played with a torn labrum for the past two seasons, and he is now going to get it fixed.
Lawrence’s name will be a popular one this coming offseason. Not for his rehab of this likely minor injury, but for his contract status with the Cowboys. After playing the 2017 campaign on the franchise tag, the pass-rushing end will be looking to ink a long-term deal with the Cowboys in the coming weeks.
Dallas has substantial cap space — a projected $54MM — and Jerry Jones hinted they are more comfortable giving Lawrence a long-term deal following his standout 2018 campaign. If a deal cannot be reached, however, the Cowboys would likely use the franchise tag again, which would likely not sit well with Lawrence, who has professed his desire with the Cowboys.
“If they don’t want this energy and intensity and this focus every day to get better, then make your move. The ball is in their hands. I feel like I’ve prepared for this moment and showed them I’m here for the long haul.”
Should the Cowboys place the tag on him again in 2019, Lawrence would stand to make around $20.5MM.
Byron Jones Seeking Cowboys Extension
Almost certainly because of a glut of extension-eligible young talents, the Cowboys are not planning to be active in free agency this offseason.
Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott, Amari Cooper, Jaylon Smith and DeMarcus Lawrence can be extended. The Cowboys have more than $54MM in projected 2019 cap space. But Byron Jones completed a breakout season in 2018. The safety-turned-cornerback has been extension-eligible for two years and has a lower-end fifth-year option salary ($6.26MM).
Jerry Jones said he is eyeing long-term deals with several of these players, Byron Jones included. The latter does not want to test free agency in 2020.
“You’re not going to find a better, more well-ran organization than the Cowboys,” Byron Jones said, via Jon Machota of the Dallas Morning News. “The fans are great; the weather’s great; the food’s great for me. I live right in the city too, so I want nothing other than playing for the Dallas Cowboys.”
A Byron Jones re-up would have been much cheaper for the Cowboys last year. But after 2018, a second-team All-Pro season, the former Connecticut defender could push to become the NFL’s highest-paid cornerback. Jones’ safety years did not net him nearly the notoriety as his year as a Kris Richard-coached corner. The outside cover man has intercepted just two passes in 64 regular-season games, but in his first full season as an NFL corner, he rated as one of Pro Football Focus’ best-graded boundary defenders.
Josh Norman‘s $15MM-AAV deal has held the distinction of being the NFL’s highest-paid corner for nearly three years. With Norman’s pact coming together when the cap was at $155MM, and this year’s salary ceiling expected to push $190MM, this could be the year a younger defender supplants the Redskins veteran.
With so many extension candidates cropping up at once, the Cowboys enter one of the more complex offseasons in recent memory. It will be interesting to see how this process unfolds.
Cowboys Leaning Against Jason Garrett Calling Plays?
With Scott Linehan now out of the picture and a potential first-time offensive coordinator in Kellen Moore the frontrunner to succeed him, Jason Garrett has by far the most experience on the Cowboys’ current staff calling plays.
A recent report indicated the longtime HC was in line to reclaim those responsibilities. Not so fast. The Cowboys like the setup of Garrett serving as the game-day overseer, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets. It is now expected Garrett will not call plays for the Cowboys in 2019.
The expected offensive-staff hierarchy is Garrett presiding over a team of Moore as OC, Jon Kitna as quarterbacks coach and tight ends coach Doug Nussmeier gaining influence, per Rapoport.
Nussmeier, 48, served as OC for Fresno State, Washington, Alabama, Michigan and Florida from 2009-17 before joining Garrett’s staff last year. Kitna has been a head high school coach since his 16-year playing career ended in 2012. Moore, 30, spent 2018 on Dallas’ staff after retiring following the ’17 season.
It would stand to reason Moore would act as the play-caller, as the assumed OC, but that may not be sorted out just yet. Regardless, it will be interesting to see where the NFC East champions go here given the less experienced staff they plan to assemble to run their 2019 offense.
Cole Beasley Discusses Role
The Jets are expected to hire former Bengals offensive line coach Frank Pollack for the same position, tweets Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. Pollack did a solid job with Cincinnati in 2018, but he was revered for his work with the Cowboys’ front five from 2013-17. He drew interest from the Packers after being fired by the Bengals, but will now head to New York, where the Jets ranked dead last in Football Outsiders‘ run-blocking metric and 18th in pass protection. Before hiring Pollack, the Jets also had interest in former 49ers assistant OL coach Adam Stenavich, per Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News (Twitter link). Stenavich has since joined the Packers’ staff as offensive line coach.
- Dez Bryant regularly criticized the Cowboys‘ front office and coaching staff before and — especially — after being released, and now another Dallas receiver has taken the same tact. “Honestly, the front office pushes who they want to get the ball to,” Cole Beasley tweeted on Tuesday. “I haven’t been a huge priority in that regard. Maybe that will change but I’m not sure. More balls come my way in 2 minute drill where nothing is planned.” In 2018, the 29-year-old Beasley ranked second on the Cowboys in targets, receptions, and yardage, and tied for second with three touchdowns. His four-year, $13.6MM extension expires in March, at which point he’ll hit the free agent market.
Latest On Cowboys, Demarcus Lawrence
Last year, the Cowboys and Demarcus Lawrence were unable to come to terms on a long-term deal, which resulted in Lawrence playing out the season on the one-year franchise tag. This time around, it sounds like the Cowboys are much more eager to get something done. 
“I wouldn’t say we were a long ways apart; we were apart,” Jones said of last year’s talks (via Kate Hairopoulos of the Dallas News). “Certainly DeMarcus has done his part to make us feel more comfortable. He put together now two back-to-back, double-digit sack seasons. Of course he’s a leader by example. … Nothing’s changed in terms of my opinion, except for the better.”
Lawrence was plagued by back issues earlier in his career, but he has now turned in two consecutive healthy seasons. In 2017, he had 14.5 sacks, 58 total tackles, and four forced fumbles. This year, he had 10.5 sacks, 64 stops, two forced fumbles, and an interception. The Cowboys asked for a repeat of ’17 and they more or less got it, which has made them comfortable with a longer arrangement.
Last year, Lawrence earned $17.143MM under the franchise tender, but he has already said he’s not open to playing on the tag in 2019. Both sides now seem on the same page, but a new deal for Lawrence won’t come cheap. The Cowboys defensive star may have his eye on deals signed by Aaron Donald and Khalil Mack, which each exceeded the $22MM/year mark.