What Dez's deal means for Cowboys entering training camp
It's hard to quantify exactly what it means for the Cowboys to have Dez Bryant signed long-term ahead of Wednesday's deadline -- and that's not even including the gigantic payday coming his way.
Firstly, it secures the team with one of the NFL's top wide receivers for what is likely to be the remainder of Tony Romo's career. As Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones has been fond of saying this offseason, there's likely only a three-to-five-year window remaining for the Pro Bowl quarterback to win a Super Bowl.
With Bryant and his 56 career touchdowns on board, Romo can be sure he'll have one of the game's best talents to throw to for the duration of that. It also brings the Cowboys' top dog back into the receiving corps, as a Dez Bryant holdout would have left Terrance Williams, Cole Beasley and Devin Street as the only experienced wide outs on the roster.
You can get as deep into the X's and O's as you want to. On top of being a red zone mismatch and a consistent 1,200-yard receiver, Bryant gives defenses a focal point to open lanes for the Cowboys' running game. With DeMarco Murray departed in free agency, Bryant's presence on the field is bound to make life easier for Joseph Randle, Darren McFadden, Lance Dunbar -- or anyone else the Cowboys line up at running back.
More than that, though, this is huge for a franchise with playoff and Super Bowl aspirations in 2015. Had the Cowboys failed to sign Bryant on Wednesday, he likely would have held out for part â if not the entirety -- of the team's training camp in Oxnard, Calif.
Whether Bryant would have sat out of regular season games, missing out on $750,000 per week in the process, is a different matter altogether. But with no monetary incentive to practice during training camp, this is an issue that would have followed the team through the month of August, into the preseason.
With their All-Pro receiver in the fold, and with the recent reduction of Pro Bowl defensive end Greg Hardy's suspension, the Cowboys don't have many remaining off-field questions to deal with.
When training camp begins on July 28, the Cowboys can count on Bryant to "lead the way," as Jones predicted, as both an All-Pro talent and a face of the franchise.
That should do wonders for this team in the coming months -- on the field and off it.
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