Dallas Cowboys part ways with cornerback Terence Newman after nine years – NFL News
After spending nine seasons with Dallas Cowboys with which he started his professional National Football League (NFL) career in 2003, cornerback Terence Newman was released by the franchise on Tuesday, March 13, 2012.
The move, which was already anticipated, will provide Cowboys a cap space of around $4 million.
Newman was drafted by Cowboys in 2003 and he has been playing as regular starter since his rookie year.
In 2008, he signed a six-year contract extension with the team. The deal reportedly valued around $50.2 million.
However, Cowboys’ owner and general manager, Jerry Jones, was not pleased with Newman’s performance during the last season in which he played 14 games and recorded 53 tackles.
Following his release, Newman will now be able to explore options in the free agency and might end up signing a short-term deal with any other team in the league.
Newman has not yet commented about his preferences and no official word from his agent has been received.
Meanwhile, Cowboys have also reportedly restructured contracts of cornerback, Orlando Scandrick, and tackle Doug Free.
As per the new deal, Scandrick’s base salary will be $1.2 million now and he will get $5.9 million signing bonus.
As for Free, his base salary is down from $6 million to $1.2 million. The difference in amount will be given to him as signing bonus.
Furthermore, Cowboys have also released kicker, David Buehler.
All the mentioned developments have provided Cowboys a room to spend extra amount during the free agency and the upcoming NFL drafts.
Cowboys head coach, Jason Garrett, had earlier said that the relaxed salary cap could allow the franchise to address some important issues.
He said:
"I think this year is a little bit different. It's different from the standpoint that free agency is prior to the draft like it usually is and we do have a little more salary cap space than in previous years.”
The head coach added:
“Hopefully we can address some of the issues we feel like we have on our team with some players we feel are attractive, and then we can go into the draft and draft as purely as possible."
With these developments, one can certainly hope that Cowboys are seriously planning on bringing new talent in the team, but it is yet to be seen what will be the starting line-up next season as the management has not yet discussed such plans.
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