Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback Tony Romo is showing some love for Dez Bryant and DeMarco Murray. He apparently has a pitch into owner Jerry Jones to bring both potential free agents back long-term.
Explaining how the continued success of the franchise should involve retaining both key players, Romo is making sure the powers to be know his stance (via Dallas Morning News).
I’m pretty consistently [talking to Jones], and everyone around the building, about bringing them both back. I think everybody understands how great these guys are and how lucky we are to have them.
Any time you get talented guys where you can put more than two on one side of the ball, you get three, four, if you’re lucky enough to ever get five, it’s one of those things where if you can put a group like that together you can make a run and be very difficult for teams to deal with for years. I think that’s what you’re trying to build ultimately is to have sustained success. We have an opportunity to have that.
Romo’s request is more easily stated than realistically accomplished. Jones has made it clear that the team will give Bryant more priority as far as working on a long-term deal with him. He’s expected to be franchised if the two sides cannot come to a long-term agreement.
As for Murray, the Cowboys offered him a low-ball $16 million four-year deal that remains on the table.
Bryant put up a career-high 16 receiving touchdowns and Murray broke the single-season franchise record with 1,845 rushing yards.
If there’s any feasible way to budget signing both Bryant and Murray long term, I’m sure the Cowboys would jump on it. Hopefully Romo’s persistence with Jones will make him work all the harder to make this task possible.
For his part, Romo must restructure his contract to make any of this work. He’s set to count $27.8 million against the cap in 2015, a number that’s not sustainable for a Cowboys team that isn’t in the best of cap situations.
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