The Dallas Cowboys haven't been very busy in free agency this year, and after going more than a month without signing anyone, they finally made a move on Tuesday night with the addition of Royce Freeman.
The veteran running back has agreed to a one-year deal, according to ESPN.com. Freeman has only started a total of nine games in his NFL career, but that will still make him the most experienced running back on the Cowboys roster. Freeman will join a young running back room in Dallas that already includes Deuce Vaughn, Snoop Connor, Malik Davis and Hunter Luepke.
The Cowboys will mark the fifth team that Freeman has played for in his career, which started in 2018 with the Denver Broncos. Freeman averaged 508.5 rushing yards per season during his first two years in the league, but he's slowed down since then. From 2020 to 2022, Freeman didn't hit the 200-yard mark a single time while playing for the Broncos, Panthers and Texans over that period.
The 28-year-old spent last season with the Los Angeles Rams and he actually ran the ball pretty well, averaging 4.1 yards per rush on 77 carries for a total of 319 yards. He also added two touchdowns for L.A. Although Freeman gives the Cowboys more depth at running back, the team is still in need of some help at the position following the loss of Tony Pollard, so it won't be surprising if the Cowboys still take a running back early in next week's NFL Draft.
The fact that the Cowboys signed Freeman is somewhat surprising, if only because they've been pretty quiet in free agency this year. Freeman is just the second outside player that the Cowboys have signed since the start of free agency on March 13. The only other signing came on the first day of action when Eric Kendricks signed with the Cowboys after initially agreeing to a deal with the San Francisco 49ers. Since then, the Cowboys had not added a single outside player before the signing of Freeman.
Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones was forced to defend his team's lack of signings during an interview with 105.3 The Fan in Dallas this week.
"When you're wanting to sign players like Dak [Prescott] and Micah [Parsons] and CeeDee [Lamb], then certainly you have to hold money back if you want to have a realistic chance of signing those guys," Jones said, via NFL.com.
Cowboys fans would probably feel a little better about that statement if any of those players had actually been given a contract extension yet, but all three are still waiting, and to make matters worse, Parsons and Lamb didn't show up for the start of the team's voluntary workouts this week.
