Stephen Jones: Cowboys will be 'efficient' in free agency
The Dallas Cowboys are more concerned with finding the best value on the open market than making a big splash.
Chief operating officer Stephen Jones was asked during a radio interview Tuesday if the Cowboys will be active in free agency and said the team will be taking a similar approach to last year, when it signed defensive end Jeremy Mincey to a two-year, $4.5-million contract.
"I don't know if active is a good word," Jones told SiriusXM NFL Radio, according to Jon Machota of the Dallas Morning News. "I think active can get you in trouble in free agency. I think you have to be efficient and look for your values, and you can do good things.
"We did it last year with a player like Mincey where we got a lot of great value out of him. But at the same time, we've been in situations where you have to pay too much for players. You got to be very careful there. We're certainly going to be that way. We're going to look to be efficient. If that proves to be productive then that would be good."
Jones was also asked about running back DeMarco Murray, who is set to become a free agent, and said he believes there is mutual interest in getting a deal done.
"It's one of those situations where you get down to the wire like this and free agency is right around the corner, it's tough for a player not to want to look and see what his options may be," Jones said. "At the same time, he understands the business of football that we can only do so much at each position. We've got to, at the end of the day, decide how we want to divide up the pie. Of course, we certainly want to give a nice piece of it to DeMarco.
"But we'll just see how that works out. We really feel like we have a great relationship with DeMarco and his agent Bill Johnson. Certainly no guarantees, no promises that he's going to bring offers back to us. But at the end of the day, I do think he wants to stay in Dallas. I know he knows we want him here. Hopefully we'll have good communication as we move forward."