Roster building in the salary cap era involves a certain degree of risk. Certainties are expensive and teams like the Cowboys can only employ so many before they exhaust their resources.
Jerry and Stephen Jones know this all too well. They seem to enjoy bargain hunting and more often than not, lean on it during free agency. Instead of signing proven players at or around their professional peak (who cost a premium), they seek out players who are in less demand and have enough questions surrounding them that their value is suppressed.
The Cowboys have had their share of success employing this method of roster building. They’ve hit on players like Jayron Kearse, Malik Hooker and a handful of others in their free agent bargain hunting over the years.
Low-cost/possible high-reward alternatives can be viewed as lottery tickets. Their flaws and specific circumstances make them inexpensive to sign and therefore the consequences of their failure are limited.