With about one week until the 2018 NFL season kicks off, one of the biggest questions remains for NFL fans. Where is Dez Bryant going to sign? I’ve taken the liberty of assessing this conundrum through the process of elimination, which should be quite fun.
Obviously, Dez isn’t going back to the Cowboys to play for the “clueless” Jerry Jones and be teammates with Snake Lee Sean Lee. So that’s one team. The first two teams that can easily be eliminated after that are teams that Bryant has already declined contacts from, the Ravens and the Browns. Bryant declined the Ravens three-year $21 million offer because he wants a one-year “prove it” contract.
That’s exactly what the Browns gave him, however, they offered less than $5 million which Dez felt was too low of a price for a player of his caliber. Since Bryant won’t take less than $5 million, and Baltimore seems to have set a market around $7 million, I’ll eliminate teams that don’t have the cap space to afford Dez. They are the Rams, Steelers, Panthers, Eagles, and Giants, leaving 25 teams.
One of the most interesting developments of the Dez Bryant drama this offseason was the constant reports fueled by not so subtle tweets from Dez that he was trying to stay in the NFC East to play the Cowboys twice a year. However, these reports were much hotter when Dez was released in April, and considering his outspoken desire to play in the NFC East, if any team was interested it would’ve happened by now. With the Giants and Eagles already cut due to cap space, the Redskins can now join them.
If Dez isn’t playing the Cowboys twice this year, it makes sense for him to try to play them at least once though. He’s made it very clear that whatever happened between he and the Cowboys is now personal. Since the point of this is to find the ideal landing spot for Dez, I’m narrowing it down to the remaining teams that Dallas will play this season. This leaves the Seahawks, Lions, Texans, Jaguars, Titans, Falcons, Saints, Colts, and Buccaneers, nine teams. Let’s start cutting this list down some more.
The Saints are a team with roughly $7 million in cap space and most likely wouldn’t spend almost all of that on Dez, so they’re out. The Seahawks already brought in a veteran WR this offseason in Brandon Marshall and are basically paying him nothing compared to what Dez is looking for, so we’ll say they’re out too. Down to seven. A team that fascinated me earlier in the summer was the Tennessee Titans, but with the recent extension of Rishard Matthews, I don’t think the Titans are looking to bring in any more talent to the wide receiver room. Sorry Titans fans, but you’re out.
With six teams remaining it’s time to really put myself in Dez Bryant’s shoes and think what he wants. He was interested in Cleveland because he was going to be guaranteed a spot within the top-three of the depth chart, meaning he would get plenty of snaps in important moments. Unfortunately, I don’t see that guarantee from teams like the Falcons with Julio Jones, Mohammed Sanu, and rookie Calvin Ridley or the Lions with Golden Tate, Marvin Jones, and sophomore Kenny Golladay. The Bucs are another team where Dez wouldn’t be guaranteed to see lots of snaps with Mike Evans, Desean Jackson, Chris Godwin, and slot-machine Adam Humphries all expected to play this season.
That leaves three AFC South teams: the Colts, Texans, and Jaguars. While it seems rather unlikely that Dez would sign in the AFC when his main goal appears to be to crush the Cowboys, but again, this is a one-year prove it deal where he still gets his shot at Dallas. I would say the possibility of playing with Deshaun Watson and alongside Deandre Hopkins on the Texans would be too much for Dez to resist.
At the same time competing for a Super Bowl with the Jaguars who just lost Marqise Lee to a knee injury for the year would be very interesting too. Don’t sleep on the Colts, however, because if Dez waits a few weeks into the season to sign, and Indy, who has three winnable games out of its first four, starts off hot, the opportunity to play with a red-hot hot returning Andrew Luck as a clear-cut starter with T.Y. Hilton might be enough to sway Bryant.
For the sake of picking a team I’ll rank these last three in the order I see the most likely, which probably means it’ll be none of the three. I’ll say
3.Colts
2. Jaguars
1. Texans
Care to share your thoughts, or think you know where Dez is going to sign? Hit me up on twitter @MS_PerSources