Cowboys Can't Close: Amari Cooper Hits NFL Free Agency

Cowboys Can't Close: Amari Cooper Hits NFL Free Agency

FRISCO - The NFL franchise tag deadline is here, and the Dallas Cowboys used theirs on Dak Prescott. Meanwhile, despite intense Sunday and Monday talks involving Amari Cooper, the Pro Bowl receiver went unsigned and is now an NFL free agent.

This can still work out; Cooper can opt to return to Dallas. But he is now an unfettered free agent - with the Cowboys having lost contractual control.

"I love being a Dallas Cowboy,'' Cooper said recently. "I love everything about it. I think about it every day. Just the aura of being a Dallas Cowboy, you can't beat it. I want to be a Cowboy for life."

In 2019, Cooper led the Cowboys in catches (79), receiving yards (1,189), and touchdowns (eight) and continued his streak of being a perennial Pro Bowler. But his performance was "streaky,'' too - which has caused some inside The Star to second-guess the team's plan to pay him like a "top-five receiver.'' ... Still, according to an offer presented Cooper last August, the "top-five'' proposal is exactly how the Cowboys have phrased their presentation here.

Without a contract, Cooper could've been franchise-tagged - had Dallas signed Prescott. But now the tagged QB could be unhappy (though he is guaranteed $33 mil for 2020) and the receiver might leave.

Team owner Jerry Jones and COO son Stephen Jones have made it clear in public that Cooper is very important to Dallas' future, tabbing him as the team's "No. 2 priority'' in free agent, behind only Prescott and ahead of other standouts like Byron Jones and Robert Quinn.

"The answer to that,'' Jerry said not long ago, "is 'yes.''

But Amari Cooper might be other teams' priority, too. So we're about to see how much Cooper really wants to be in Dallas.