Blogging The Boys
UDFAs are going to be fun to track for the Cowboys this season.
The Dallas Cowboys call the undrafted free agents they sign after the draft their “second draft”, and not just because they think it’s a funny name for a bunch of no-name camp bodies they sign to fill up the roster.
They call it their second draft because the Cowboys don’t allow their scouts to “come off grade” after the draft. If they have a grade on a guy before the draft, they have to stick with it after the draft. Which means that after the draft, they try and sign every guy still left on their draft board, as the Cowboys feel those players effectively amount to extra draft picks.
And the Cowboys have traditionally done quite well with this approach. Everybody knows how the Cowboys developed UDFAs like Tony Romo and Miles Austin into NFL superstars, but there are many more UDFAs on the roster in Dallas. Last year alone:
Jon Machota of The Athletic reports that in the post-draft press conference, Stephen Jones said the Cowboys were “fired up” to have added five college free agents who were on their draft board. Jones did not share the names of those players.
“That’s huge,” [Stephen Jones] added. “One of them was at the top of our board at the end of the draft. Those things, obviously they’re up there for a reason. We think a lot of them, and that’s important. We take a lot of pride in the college free agency after the draft as well. We think that’s the second draft, and there’s a lot of good players we’ve gotten that weren’t drafted that came here as college free agents and did really well.”
In a recent article here on Blogging The Boys, we looked at how the Cowboys have built and maintained an advantage in signing undrafted free agents and saw that the team had consistently been one of the top spenders in the league on UDFAs, and not just recently.
Over the last three years the Cowboys had one UDFA player each year that made more than $200,000 in total guarantees (signing bonus + guarantees) for signing with the Cowboys.
This year, per Todd Archer, the Cowboys have, not one, but two players eclipsing $250K:
Why $234,000 for Alijah Clark and Justin Barron? Todd Archer explains:
The $234,000 guarantee is what a player would make on a practice squad this season.
We may...
