Former Texas Longhorns safety Earl Thomas was back in the news on Saturday. This time after an altercation with teammate Chuck Clark. Thomas was sent home from practice on Friday and the news now surrounds the fact that he could be on his way out of town.
Our colleagues at the Ravens Wire pondered the idea of four possible trade landing spots for Thomas. Given the contract situation, it might be difficult to pull off a trade or even release him without getting creative. A trade seems difficult due to the money owed to Thomas, but what if he was outright released? Which team could be interested?
Obviously one team that many fans will ask about is the Dallas Cowboys. No shock seeing as how he grew up as a Cowboys fan and for the better part of the last two seasons, the rumors were flying that he could land with America’s Team. In the aforementioned trade article on Ravens Wire, the Cowboys were mentioned as one of the four.
The Cowboys have been interested in every top safety over the last two years and a deal for Thomas would make a ton of sense for both sides.
Dallas was in the running for Thomas’ services last year but didn’t want to pay the price Baltimore ultimately did for him, according to David Moore of The Dallas Morning News. But with a potential trade, Thomas’ contract would be far more manageable with only $10 million guaranteed this year. On top of that, Thomas is from Texas and a return to his home state would probably make him happy as well.
The Cowboys would get a top safety for relatively cheap and the Ravens would get some cap savings. It’s rare deals work out this well in situations like this.
The idea of Thomas to Dallas all started when Earl Thomas approached then head coach Jason Garrett and said “come get me”. The Cowboys flirted with the idea of trading for him in the 2019 NFL Draft but decided instead to draft another former Longhorn, Connor Williams. When Earl Thomas became a free agent, the ideas swirled again before he signed with the Ravens.
With the perception of him on his way out of Baltimore could Dallas have that internal conversation again? The team lost their best cornerback in Byron Jones. The secondary is relatively young and Thomas has the experience to help. One thing that the Cowboys struggle with is creating turnovers.
Despite the fact that Thomas is 31 years old, he can still have some impact on the field. He created six turnovers over the last two seasons. Which is a lot more than any Cowboy has done. It might be worth kicking the tires on. Plus the Cowboys just created some cap space with a restructure of Tyron Smith’s contract.