[the Talking Can]

The bigger issue, as Fitzgerald notes, is what to do with Ware, who is currently in the fifth season of what amounts to a nine-year deal with the team. For Ware, both professionally and contractually, the future is now. Ware has base salaries of $12 million or more in each of the four years remaining on his deal, with cap holds ranging between $14 million and $17 million; it would be exceedingly difficult to push any more money from his deal into the future. Furthermore, if the Cowboys decided to move on from Ware, they would actually realize the meaningful cap savings that they would need to lock up Smith and/or Bryant to long-term deals. If they don't touch Ware's contract, they would save $7.4 million by releasing him before 2014 or, more likely, $12.1 million by releasing him before 2015. That seems like anathema considering how well Ware has played during his time in Dallas, but the Cowboys just can't afford to keep him and Romo while giving big contracts to Bryant and Smith, while the contracts to Lee and Carr will be too onerous to move. Dallas could try to give Ware a new contract, but it seems unlikely Ware would take a deal that would massively slice his pay, and at 31, it would be near-suicidal to give Ware another top-caliber deal that stretched his pay across six or seven years. Barring a new deal, it seems plausible the Cowboys would expect to move on from Ware after the 2014 season. If you start seeing the negative stories about Ware trickling into the Dallas media over the next few months, you'll know what Dallas is planning to do.

.