As the Cowboys have learned, the receiver for whom they gave up a first-round pick, a third-round pick, and a fifth-round pick in 2008 and to whom they’re paying $9 million per year doesn’t quite measure up to the wideout they acquired as a street free agent in 2006.
And while owner Jerry Jones isn’t ready to admit defeat regarding Roy Williams, Jones knows that Miles Austin’s ascension represents the ultimate victory of the NFL’s cutting-room floor.
So with Austin becoming a restricted free agent for the second straight year only months after emerging as one of the best receivers in the league, Jones said Tuesday on ESPN 103.3 in Dallas that Austin won’t be leaving.
“We’re just not going to have Miles Austin any place but with the Dallas Cowboys,” Jones said, via Todd Archer of the Dallas Morning News. “We need him.”
The declaration won’t do much to get Austin’s agents to ask for a penny less than the five years, $45 million being paid to Williams, but it also means that the Cowboys will at least be applying the highest possible RFA tender to Austin.
That said, Howard Balzer recently spelled out a scenario on KFNS in St. Louis and on Sirius NFL Radio that could prompt an owner like Jones to consider taking even greater steps in an uncapped year to ensure that a player like Austin won’t be pilfered. Because the deadline for application of the franchise tag comes a week before the deadline for use of the restricted free agency tender and eight days before the launch of the new league year, there’s a chance -- albeit a slim one -- that a new CBA will be finalized after the deadline for applying the franchise tag has come and gone.
In theory, the new CBA could roll back the minimum years of service for unrestricted free agency to four, making guys like Austin and Jets receiver Braylon Edwards and Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman full and complete participants in the open market.
We think it’s unlikely that the Cowboys or any other team would face such a consequence. Then again, it only takes 24 teams to approve a new CBA, and if the league’s efforts (as evidenced by the content of NFLLabor.com) to nudge the four-year and five-year guys toward an uprising that forces the union to take the offer that’s on the table the day before the uncapped year begins are successful, Jones will have only himself to blame for leaving Austin exposed by not applying the franchise tag to him. (And, yes, the franchise tag can be applied to restricted free agents.)
So stay tuned on this one. If Jones is truly adamant about keeping Miles Austin, the Cowboys should use the franchise tag on him. Better yet, they should pull out Roy Williams’ contract and change the name at the top to “Miles Austin.”