The news of Malik Hooker being signed with the Dallas Cowboys has brought some mixed reactions but mostly excitement among Cowboys Nation. It’s hard to blame fans for feeling good about this move. The safety position has been neglected by this organization for so long, that the thought of a potentially elite player starting at the center field position could be too much to bear for many fans. After all, this is training camp and therefore the season for optimism. Forget about the well documented injury history and the fact that the player went unsigned for the better part of the offseason. Everything is coming up roses right now…or is it?
The true question Cowboys fans have to ask themselves is, what was the motivation for this signing? Was it Jerry Jones rolling the dice on an exceptionally talented player on a cheap one year deal? (Side note, I refuse to contribute to the madness of adding yet another way too easy joke associating the guy’s last name and the terms of his contract) Jerry and Stephen Jones have gained a reputation of being notoriously frugal in free agency but they have also take a few short term risks on players that could be difference makers when everyone else had given up on them. Greg Hardy, Rolando McClain, and Gerald McCoy are just a few examples. In most cases, those signings did not turn out as well as some fans expected but at the end of the day, the Cowboys didn’t invest many resources so it was well worth the risk. This could be a situation where the Cowboys have nothing to lose but yet everything to gain.
The other possibility is that after OTA’s and the start of training camp, the safety situation has looked so bad that the Cowboys were desperate to try and upgrade. The timing of the signing does seem to point in that direction. It can be argued that the delayed signing was merely the result of delayed medical clearance but the Cowboys did bring in both Malik Hooker and Damontae Kazee in the spring and they chose to sign Kazee over Hooker at that time. Both players suffered Achilles injuries last season and Kazee was actually injured more recently. If the group consisting of Donovan Wilson, Damontae Kazee, Darian Thompson, Jayron Kearse, and the rookie converted CB Israel Mukuamu, have struggled to this point, the Cowboys may be resting all of their hopes on a player who has never played an entire season and went unsigned for months. That scenario is far less optimistic then the simple explanation above but it may be the more logical explanation for how the events have played themselves out.
The hopes and dreams of all Cowboys fans rest on the idea that the defense will drastically improve this season. With the safety position being a weak link on this team for far too long, the Malik Hooker signing will do one of two things; It will either help the Cowboys realise their dreams, or be an indication that the last ditch effort of the front office to address to safety position is the only the beginning of a nightmare 2021 season
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