The Dallas Cowboys are reportedly hosting troubled free agent defensive end Greg Hardy at Valley Ranch today.
While Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is hard at work pouring honey into Hardy's ear - or will it be the soon-to-be suspended Hardy doing his best to ply Jones with his signal-caller-sacking wares? - fans of the Cowboys sit at their homes and workstations waiting with baited breath for word of whether Hardy will be crushing quarterbacks as a member of the Dallas franchise for the next several seasons or not.
Only, the signing of Hardy, as phenomenal and celebration-inducing as it might be, may also be a hindrance to another piece of business the Cowboys are reportedly interested in enacting - the pursuit of Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson.
"If Dallas were to sign Greg Hardy, it would greatly diminish its financial flexibility to acquire Adrian Peterson. Too close to cap as is," ESPN's Adam Schefter tweeted.
The potential addition of Hardy would be huge for a Cowboys team and, more specifically, defense that faltered down the stretch after performing so admirably during the early portion of the season, finishing the year with just 28 sacks - good enough, ironically, for 28th in the league.
Hardy finished the 2013 season with 15 sacks all by himself in 16 games of work. He also added 59 tackles and five stuffs. The season prior, he corralled 11 sacks.
He'd slide right into a starring role on the Dallas defensive line and add a threat the team was sorely missing last season after DeMarcus Ware wandered off to Denver.
Dallas, per OverTheCap.com, currently has the fourth-highest cap figure in the league. They've got approximately $5.4 million in space and that doesn't even take into account the contracts for the crop of fresh-faced rookies to be brought onboard in the 2015 NFL Draft and whatever other smaller holes Jones and head coach Jason Garrett may look to fill in free agency's second and third-waves.
A Hardy contract would undoubtedly eat up that remaining space, leaving little to no room for other business, let alone a Peterson addition.
The Cowboys and Jones have long been rumored to be enamored with the perennial Pro Bowl running back, currently in the fourth year of a seven-year, $100 million contract with Minnesota. Peterson, per a report from ESPN's Outside the Lines, may have voiced his interest in playing for the Cowboys during a phone conversation with Jones in June 2014, so the assumption is that mutual interest exists between the two sides.
After his suspension on charges of domestic violence involving an incident with his then four-year-old son, Peterson is set to make his triumphant return to the NFL next season and rumors continue to swirl that Peterson is unhappy in Minnesota and wants out of the Vikings organization.
That rumor grew thick, deep-rooted legs Tuesday.
"Vikings quietly going about the business of shopping Adrian Peterson.He has requested-I want out!," Larry Fitzgerald Sr. tweeted.
While the cost to pry Peterson away from the Vikings may be prohibitive for the Cowboys and there's no certainty they'd even be interested in adding the future Hall of Fame running back, the reality of the situation is Dallas is up against the cap with little wiggle room and plenty of holes left to fill.
Hardy would be a great defensive addition, just as Peterson would do more than just fill the spot left by the departure of last season's NFL leading rusher, DeMarco Murray in the Cowboys backfield - really, the idea of Peterson running behind the Dallas offensive line is simply mind-boggling.
Until each player's situation is fully resolved or pen is put to paper, questions will continue to linger and rumors will continue to persist about where they'd like to be and what teams could be interested in adding their considerable services.
Dallas could essentially be signaling their intentions toward Peterson one way or another with their actions toward Hardy, because with their current salary cap situation, a Hardy deal effectively means no Peterson.
