BREAKING Xavier Woods Leaves Dallas Cowboys, Signs With Vikings - NFL Free Agency

Woods is a relative success but has never been a difference-maker for the Cowboys.But now he'll try to earn his payday as a difference-maker elsewhere.

FRISCO - The Dallas Cowboys have more than a dozen "name'' free agents, more than a few of whom populate Pro Football Focus' "Top 100 Free Agents'' list for 2021.

Ranked No. 50 on PFF’s list is Xavier Woods. Their logic?

"Woods entered the league as a versatile safety with slot coverage skills and a sixth-round draft steal as he’s developed into a solid free safety.''

The problems we have with their logic range from the terminology used (as Woods was slated to be a free agent, was this really going to be a "contract extension,'' as PFF wrote? Well, no) to the evaluation of Woods through the prism of where he was drafted.

The reality is that Dallas was going to turn the page here, as we reported last month, and now Woods has signed a one-year deal to jump to Minnesota. (NFL Network reports that the payday is "up to $2.25 million and that Woods is "a perfect scheme fit'' with the Vikings ... two very flattering portrayals of the facts.)

More facts: The Cowboys feel they've upgraded with the signing of Damontae Kazee, formerly of the Falcons, who signed on this week with his own one-year deal.

Kazee once had seven interceptions in a season. Woods has five in his career.

The All-22 tape on new #Vikings safety Xavier Woods' five career interceptions: pic.twitter.com/7zQ3C2WlXC

— Will Ragatz (@WillRagatz) March 27, 2021

And more more fact ... Dallas found Woods in the sixth round, and that is a credit to the scouting department, to the coaching staff and to Xavier, as he's made a nice career for himself. But that has nothing to do with giving him a hefty payday.

Which was never going to happen in Dallas.

The Cowboys this spring recognize that the NFL is in a cap crunch, and we've suggested we're about to see a "Middle-Class Squeeze'' because of it. There is about to be a flood onto the market of "solid'' players, safeties and at other positions, lessening the reason to overpay for any of them.

Additionally, the hiring of Dan Quinn as defensive coordinator has provided the Cowboys with another set of evaluation eyeballs. What was he going to say about Woods vs., say, his former Falcons safeties Keanu Neal and Kazee? What would his top assistant, Joe Whitt, say?

We already knew what that answer was going to be a month ago.

Woods continues to get criticism for his unwise early 2020 remark about Dallas effort, when he said, “On certain plays, some guys, I mean me included, there may be a lack, but overall the effort is there. I mean, we’re in the NFL, you don’t expect guys (to go) full speed for 70 plays. That’s not possible.''

That was an unfortunate comment that has little to do with Woods' contractual reality, which we always believed would be this: Woods is a relative success but has never been a difference-maker for the Cowboys.

But now he'll try to earn his smallish payday as a difference-maker in Minny.

READ MORE: Cowboys Free Agency Tracker: Updated by the Minute!