Cowboys Coach Mike McCarthy Explains Amari Cooper, La’el Collins, Randy Gregory Moves

McCarthy says, “Hey, we knew it was going to be difficult. Hopefully we can finish strong.’’

FRISCO - Dallas Cowboys coach Mike McCarthy feels your NFL free agency pain, Cowboys Nation.

But he thinks he can explain the “mindset” here inside The Star.

“The first quarter is not even completed yet,” McCarthy said as the first week of free agency ended. “If people are frustrated, well, sometimes games are a little frustrating.

“We’ve definitely come out with a … ‘take-care-of-your-own’ mindset. Outside of our own roster, we have a mindset where we’re not going to throw the ball deep with every snap.

“How’s that for a football analogy?’’

“Not throw deep,” meaning don’t “overpay” for outside free agents. And he’s right about the early days of the period being like the first quarter of a long game.

Indeed, as the “second quarter” commenced, Dallas re-signed Dorance Armstrong and Leighton Vander Esch and added “outsiders” James Washington and Dante Fowler.

Along the way, of course, McCarthy’s Cowboys also said goodbye to starters La’el Collins (cut), Amari Cooper (traded) and Randy Gregory (left via free agency). In his Dallas News visit …

On Cooper: “Amari Cooper is a fantastic football player. He does some things clearly that put him with the best, particularly his quickness at the lateral release is about as good as I’ve ever worked with. That was a difficult, difficult decision.”

On Collins: “Same with La’el. You don’t want to lose those sort of players. But when you talk about competition, there is also competition and a challenge in the financial arena. You have to make business decisions that are in line with the dynamics of your cap.’’

On Gregory: “I thought Randy was very, very impactful for us on our football team last year on and off the field. He’s a unique personality. I have a lot of love for Randy in our year-and-a-half together.”

The “love” for Gregory, it turns out, is unrequited; he’s now blasting Cowboys fans for being “toxic.” And Dallas obviously fell out of love with Collins and Cooper for reasons that go beyond finance.

“Our goal was to try to sign as many of our own free agents back, knowing that was going to be hard to do with some of them,’’ McCarthy said. “Hey, we knew it was going to be difficult. Hopefully we can finish strong.’’

There are, after all, more off-season “quarters” to go.