cowboys cut wiley

[finman11]

Cutting Veteran More Personnel Move Than Financial

Nick Eatman
DallasCowboys.com Staff Writer
Feb. 22, 2005, 4:27 p.m. (CST)

IRVING, Texas - On the first day teams could officially start releasing players, several big names around the league were shown the door Tuesday, mostly as salary-cap casualties.

The Cowboys also took part in the process, although their roster moves had more to do about being a good fit, rather than taking up too much cap room.

Regardless of why, the Cowboys released veteran defensive end Marcellus Wiley Tuesday, just one year into a four-year contract he signed last March. The club also waived seven-year veteran center Gennaro DiNapoli, who missed all of last season with a stress fracture in his foot.

Wiley, who started 15 games for the Cowboys last year, was the team's highest-paid free agent acquisition last off-season. But he never lived up to the expectations of being a pure pass rusher. Wiley had just three sacks, and didn't record one for the first 11 games of the season.

The move only saves the Cowboys around $250,000 in cap space for this year. Wiley was scheduled to count $3.625 million on the cap this year, which included a $500,000 roster bonus the Cowboys would've paid had he been on the roster on March 2. Now, the Cowboys will eat the remaining three years of his pro-rated $4.5 million signing bonus, totaling $3.375 million.

Now with speculation swirling around the Cowboys' possible switch to a 3-4 defense, Wiley might have never been in the plans for this season anyway. At 6-4, 278, Wiley is considered an undersized defensive end in a regular 4-3 defense. But if the Cowboys indeed switch to a 3-4, Wiley would be too small to be a defensive end, which faces constant double teams from guards and tackles and likely wouldn't be fast enough to be an outside linebacker, having to occasionally drop back in coverage.

And whether or not changing defenses affected the Cowboys' decision, it's likely that Wiley's post-game comments after the season-finale in New York could've been the final blow as well.

Frustrated by the Cowboys' last-second 28-24 loss to the Giants, coupled with the end of disappointing 6-10 season, Wiley ripped the Cowboys from coaching staff to management, voicing his displeasure in his lack of opportunities, particularly on third-down and passing situations. Wiley was also upset that he was forced to play a different role, and even a different position than he initially thought, having to move from his usual left-side to the right side, right before the start of the season.

And even though Wiley did eventually move back to his left side, only because he broke a finger on his left hand, preventing him from putting it down to the ground on the right side of the defense, he still wasn't happy with the line rotation, which often had him on the sidelines when the team needed pressure on the quarterback the most.

"I was told I'd be a defensive end, told I'd be able to rush the passer and told I'd be preserved," Wiley said. "But if everyone would have told me all this would have occurred, I would not have stepped foot in Texas. I'm prepared for whatever comes because nothing can be worse than this year."