IRVING, Texas – One day after their decision to release Jay Ratliff, the Cowboys spoke about the implications and issues surrounding the move.
Cowboys owner/general manager Jerry Jones, as well as coach Jason Garrett spoke to the media about the past year of uncertainty around Ratliff. Jones said the decision to release the veteran involved a number of variables – most notably, consideration of the salary cap and the team's prospects this season.
"This was a decision that certainly had salary cap implications – every decision does in this day and time," Jones said. "But it also had immediate consideration for what it's going to mean for this season, and we're excited about what our opportunities are here. So both of those things were part of this decision."
The decision to cut Ratliff will save the team the cost of paying him had he been moved to the injured reserve. That raises the question of why the Cowboys placed him on the Physically Unable to Perform List to start the season. But Garrett said he still had hope of using Ratliff after he strained his hamstring during his pre-training camp conditioning test.
"I think you're always hopeful about the health of every player and you make designations accordingly," he said. "I can give you 50 examples of decisions we've made as to when to put someone on IR and why, when to put someone on PUP and why, and when to keep someone on the active roster and why. That was the decision we made."
The matter of Ratliff's debilitating injury, not the hamstring strain but the one suffered against Cleveland in 2012, remains confusing. Mark Slough, Ratliff's agent, said Wednesday that his client's lower body injury had been mischaracterized as a sports hernia, when it in fact involved severe ligament and muscle damage.
Neither Jones nor Garrett would speak in specifics, as a matter of legal obligations. But both supported the reliability of the team's medical staff in its evaluations.
"I can't comment on the medical aspects of this thing. Without being trite, I don't want to be because this is not a trite matter," Jones said. "It's a sad matter, because we do need him and he wants to be out competing and helping his teammates and helping us win. But I can't operate in a world where I go back and take today's information and apply it to decisions made one year ago."
Garrett added: "We have a tremendous amount of confidence in our medical staff, and the only way that I can answer that is injuries are challenging and you don't always know how a player's [embedded_ad]
going to respond. The ability for him to come back in a timely manner – you make a lot of highly educated guesses about the status of a player based on the player, based on what the injury is, what particular position he may play. So you're always doing that. We do that every day."
That extends to the conditioning test, which both Garrett and Jones said is only ever performed at the discretion of the player involved. Again, though, few specifics were provided.
"I couldn't address that. I know it's up to the player to decide if he wants to test to see if he's physically able to play. That's up to the player," Jones said.
