Jerry Jones and his cronies in the Dallas Cowboys front office took a calculated risk when they signed Grapevine native Henry Melton to a one-year deal for the 2014 season in hopes the defensive tackle would return to his Pro Bowl form from before his torn ACL in 2013.
The deal was for one year, but it had a three-year team option, and it seems highly unlikely Jones and the Cowboys will pick up that option after a disappointing year.
According to The Dallas Morning News, if Melton is on the Cowboys' roster on March 10, he automatically gets his three-year extension with $9 million guaranteed in 2015 and $8 million per season over those years.
That is not money you'd want to pay a guy that did what Melton did last year, when he picked up just five sacks and 15 tackles, while missing two games.
All of that makes it highly unlikely Melton will see March 10 as a Cowboy.
"I think we all had hoped from the day that he got there and OTAs that he would be at Pro Bowl form,” Jones said. “That was probably unrealistic, but that’s a goal. As he went through the season, he evolved and improved. He had a setback or two that I would call nicks, probably impacted his overall steady progression to back to where he was that year in Chicago (2012) before he got hurt. But in general, I did see progress with how he rehabbed from his injury. I know that we’re eons better off today relative to rehabbing his injury than he was when we started training camp.”
