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David Helman
Dallas Cowboys Insider
It’s always fun to see a team’s philosophy shift, and this one is about as drastic as you’ll see in Dallas.
Long gone is the annual complaint about the Cowboys’ refusal to value the safety position. We’ve known that for a year or more at this point, but they’ve now hammered it home with the news that they’ve signed Malik Hooker to a three-year contract extension worth as much as $24 million. Having just turned 27, the deal should lock Hooker into place with the Cowboys for most of his football prime.
If you’re keeping score at home, it’s the second major extension signed by a Dallas safety this year. The Cowboys surprised everyone by holding onto Donovan Wilson during free agency by signing him to a three-year, $21 million deal of his own. The guarantees on Hooker’s deal are a reported $16.5 million, and Wilson’s sit at $13.5 million.
The difference should be striking for anyone who’s followed this team in recent years. If you need proof, consider that between 2010-2022, the Cowboys paid their starting safeties roughly $15.3 million in guarantees — about half what the current unit is guaranteed over the next few years.
Also consider that Jayron Kearse, the emotional leader of this trio, received $5 million in guarantees when he signed last spring. So, if I can do basic math correctly, roughly 77% of the guarantees given to safeties over the last decade-plus have come in the past 15 months.
As much as the lack of spending was widely attributed to former defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli, it feels safe to attribute this shift to the new one. Dan Quinn arrived in Dallas in the spring of 2021, and in the time since the Cowboys have paid three different safeties — two of which arrived here at the same time as he did. And what’s even more striking is that of this trio of Kearse, Hooker and Wilson, only Wilson was discovered via the Cowboys’ preferred method of the draft.
It’s not exactly hard to figure out why, as safety play…
Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/why-cowboys-extended-malik-hooker-and-what-it-means-for-the-defense
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Publish date : 2023-08-05 03:25:19
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