It is well known throughout all professional sports that contract years for athletes are very important. That is, a player who’s contract expires at the end of the season who looks to put together one of their best seasons as a pro in order to bring in top money from another team, or show his current team enough to be resigned.
We have already talked extensively here at Inside The Star about current Cowboys who’s contracts have expired, as we approach free agency. Now, let’s fast-forward to the start of the 2016 season and take a look at a Cowboys wide receiver who will be playing in a contract year.
Terrance Williams
Terrance Williams’ time in Dallas has been highlighted by inconsistency. His stat lines from his first three seasons as a Cowboy are as follows:
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2013 – 44 REC 736 YDS 5 TDs
2014 – 37 REC 621 YDS 8 TDs
2015 – 52 REC 840 YDS 3 TDs
Coming into this season, fans took some slight comfort in coping with the possibility of playing without Dez Bryant, because Terrance Williams was ready to take over as a top target.
While Dez was limited the whole season when on the field, Williams did little to step up and help the Cowboys offense. Yes, he had to deal with the likes of Brandon Weeden and Matt Cassel throwing him the ball, but a WR who is only good when playing with a top QB is not a player who will bring in a large contract.
The knocks on Williams’ have been that he is a body catcher and that he checks out of plays in which he is not the primary target. However, we saw in the later half of the season how dangerous he can be if he does indeed get the ball in his hands.
As a three-year player, the honest evaluation on Williams to this point is that if you are relying on him to be your second best receiver, you have an issue. If you ask him to be a role player to take the top off the defense as part of a deeper receiving core, you can likely live with Terrance Williams.
Brice Butler made the most of his playing time down the stretch in Dallas, and the thought was that he will replace Williams on the outside next season. If this does indeed happen, I do not see Williams returning in 2017 as a role player.
Dez Bryant is the franchise’s pride at the receiver position, locked up on a mega-contract until 2019. What the Cowboys get out of this contract to Bryant will be dictated by who they get to play across from him. While Butler likely isn’t the long-term answer to that question, Terrance Williams has shown that he is not that guy as well.
I expect Butler to replace Williams after training camp, and the Cowboys to also bring in another WR through the draft or free agency.
Terrance Williams is certainly a guy that needs a big contract year for the Dallas Cowboys in 2016.
First of all, I am not a fan of Williams. He seems to have an inherent flaw that limits his ceiling or perhaps this is his ceiling and that's not so bad for a #3 receiver. But he is not a #2 and never will be in my opinion. He can be incredibly frustrating with the drops and then he will make an amazing catch. I think he is worth keeping as depth. But I have to ask you to expand on why you think Butler will overtake him. What have you seen to indicate that? Butler couldn't grab a job at Oakland when they were hungry to find starters at the position and he seems to be a one trick pony with speed on fly patterns.
he's a body catcher that doesn't run great routes and really has no speed. time to move on.
Move on from him.
I would argue that Williams is more of the one trick pony in running streak routes, but Butler is better than him in that area anyway. It's such a small sample size with Butler, but he seems to run crisp routes and is explosive with the ball in his hands. Want to see more of him with Romo, which we will in training camp, and from there I think he will prove a lot more than Terrance.
Valid point on seeing Butler with Romo through camp and like Zac mentions below he reminds him of Miles Austin. Oddly Butler is one inch taller at 6'3" and they are the same weight. Butler is also a bit faster at 4.37 vs. 4.47. One thing about Butler is he is slow off the line and has a long stride so when he gets in the open field he can really accelerate. It's just getting by the defender. I would like to see him use his height and be more physical. Maybe in fairness to Butler he did kind of go through some stuff as he started there, such as coaching changes, QB changes, and maybe it didn't allow him to get his footing. He was a 7th pick and apparently Dallas saw something to make them give up a conditional 5th so I think they should give him an opportunity to see what he can do. I hope he blossoms but the jury is out. While I don't think we need to be looking at Treadwell with the #4 pick, I think there are some excellent options with our 2nd and 3rd picks and always some hidden jewels in later rounds. It was not until Austin's 4th year that he blossomed and since Butler is heading into his 4th year, maybe this is his year!
Brice Butler reminds me a lot of Miles Austin, and anyone who has been around these forums for a little while knows I was a fan of Austin's.
I always put it like this: tons of receivers are fast. Tons of receivers can catch the ball well. Tons of receiver run fast AND catch the ball well. The differentiating factor among wide receivers, as far as I'm concerned, is route-running.
Most starting NFL cornerbacks can shut down receivers who are poor route-runners, even ones that are blazing fast. I see speed-demon after speed-demon come through the NFL at the wide receiver position and ultimately prove disappointing. I have NEVER seen a wide receiver be described as a great route-runner and not have a nice window of decent production in their career.
I LOVE wide receivers who behave like students of the game. I feel like Brice Butler might be one of those guys. Runs very good routes, covers the basic stuff (like not "stutter-stepping" when you're coming off the ball, catching the ball with your hands, etc).
He might ultimately end up not being as good as I hope he'll be, but I feel pretty confident he's more than an experiment.
Williams is a #2 receiver and nothing more. That's okay when the #1 receiver is actually active but there's an issue when your #2 guy can't come close to filling those shoes. They need to do better. That may be Butler, who looked great last year, but I have no issue with them spending as high as the #4 pick on a receiver.
Seems like Jess is creeping towards joining RJ on #TeamTreadwell haha
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