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Rob Carr/Getty Images

After oversleeping for two weeks, the Dallas Cowboys are finally ready to stop pounding the snooze button on free agency. Don't expect a cannonball, but at least Dallas is getting a feel for the second wave of the process by bringing in three unsigned players this week.

Those veterans, according to Clarence Hill of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, are Justin Durant, Michael Huff and Will Allen. 

The issue, according to Hill, is that the Cowboys are just $102,000 under the salary cap and have already restructured contracts belonging to Jay Ratliff, Nate Livings, Miles Austin, Mackenzy Bernadeau, Brandon Carr, Jason Witten, Orlando Scandrick and DeMarcus Ware. 

It's not an absolute necessity that the Cowboys extend Tony Romo's contract in order to sign a free agent, but it sure would help. The team is stuck with Doug Free until June 1, and there are very few restructure candidates remaining. 

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On Tuesday, we took an in-depth look at new Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Bradley Fletcher to determine how the former St. Louis Ram would fit in with the Eagles. Now, let's analyze fellow newbie corner Cary Williams to draw some conclusions in regard to what he will and won't bring to Philly. 

 

What he brings...

Big-game experience

Williams started and played a huge role in the Baltimore Ravens' Super Bowl victory over the San Francisco 49ers. He was too slow to get over in zone coverage and missed a tackle on Michael Crabtree's 31-yard second-half touchdown...

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You know March Madness has arrived when national and local websites launch zany brackets in efforts to decide who or what is the best of all time. TheScore.com, for example, had a "greatest sports video game" bracket last year, while you're still welcome to take part in this website's bracket-style quest to determine the best barbecue restaurant in Alabama.

And it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

NFL.com is in on the action this year with a 64-slot bracket to determine the greatest play in NFL history. While 15 of the 64 plays in the tournament were made by teams from the NFC East, the only top-seeded play involving the division is this one...

David Tyree's Super Bowl catch—and I hate calling it that, because the play was about so much more than just the reception at the end—is the No. 1 seed in the "Swann Division." In the opening round, that play faces Darrell Green chasing down Tony Dorsett in Green's first NFL game.

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The Washington Redskins were forced to say goodbye to DeAngelo Hall earlier in the offseason, and now it appears they've replaced Hall in the starting lineup with a solid young cover guy in E.J. Biggers, who was signed on the free-agent market Wednesday. 

The big difference is that while Hall became the Redskins' slot corner in nickel situations, taking 43 percent of his coverage snaps inside, Biggers took 83 percent of his cover snaps with the Buccaneers last season on the outside. And thus schematically, Biggers is probably better described as Cedric Griffin's replacement than Hall's. 

Either way, he'll be asked to fill a void and could have to increase those slot snaps if no other candidates emerge. 

Ideally, second-year SMU product Richard Crawford emerges as a reliable slot corner in 2013, giving Biggers and Josh Wilson the ability to stick to outside receivers. 

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Thanks to $18 million worth of salary cap sanctions from the NFL, the Washington Redskins had to make magic happen merely to sign a pair of bottom-tier offensive tackles and a relatively anonymous corner on the free-agent market. 

But the good news is that all of this forced discipline in 2012 and 2013 means that when the 'Skins reach the 2014 offseason, they can quit the David Copperfield act. 

CSN Washington's Rich Tandler estimates that Washington will enter next offseason with about $36 million under the cap and 48 players under contract. 

That'll make it easy for the Redskins to navigate the open market while also re-signing their guys. And it's a big reason why they need to find a way to dig up the cash to keep Fred Davis around for one more year. If they can do that, they'll have survived these penalties with only having to throw DeAngelo Hall overboard.

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Losing a backup linebacker for four games isn't ordinarily a costly development, and assuming that Brian Orakpo comes back healthy and ready to roll, the Washington Redskins should survive the first month of the season without Rob Jackson

With that being said, it's a little disconcerting that Jackson has become the seventh Redskins player since 2011 to be suspended for violating the NFL's substance-abuse policy. 

That is more than any other team in the NFL. Furthermore, according to Jimmy Kempski at Blogging the Beast, it represents 15 percent of the league's substance-abuse suspensions during that span. 

Considering that the Redskins only possess about three percent of the league's players, that's quite a hefty chunk of drug-related mischief stemming from Washington. 

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USA TODAY Sports

While at Oregon, Chip Kelly ran high-flying, high-octane and high-scoring offenses. Everything was high, except the draft stock of the quarterbacks who led those offenses. 

Marcus Mariota, Darron Thomas and Jeremiah Masoli weren't exactly nationally touted superstars. The jury is still out on Mariota, but Thomas and Masoli never made the jump to the NFL.

But Kelly's offenses were immensely successful anyway, and he alluded to that fact on Wednesday while attempting to explain why his new NFL team, the Philadelphia Eagles, was in no urgent need of a franchise quarterback

From PhillyMag.com's Tim McManus

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The New York Giants have a new starting tight end for the fourth time in as many years. And while Kevin Boss, Jake Ballard and Martellus Bennett were all quality weapons (to varying degrees), newbie Brandon Myers could be a more productive receiving threat that any of those three predecessors. 

Among tight ends in 2012, Myers finished fourth in the league with 79 catches and sixth with 806 yards. Ballard and Bennett were arguably better athletes, but their receiving numbers didn't hold a candle to those of Myers. 

He also caught 78.2 percent of the passes he was targeted on last season, which ranked first in the league among tight ends who were thrown at at least 50 times (per Pro Football Focus). Bennett caught only 62.5 percent of the passes he was targeted on. Ballard was 66.7 in 2011 and Boss was 53.0 in 2010.

Those guys had Eli Manning, while Myers had Carson Palmer. 

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Rob Carr/Getty Images

The buzz around the league this afternoon surrounds a new rule the NFL has adopted that will penalize offensive players for lowering their heads (per CBS Sports' Jason La Canfora) and leading with the crown of their helmets.

Thirty-one of 32 teams voted in favor of the new policy despite the fact current and former players had protested it vehemently. 

While the rule technically applies to offensive ball-carriers in general, logic indicates the the more you run, the more you'll expose yourself to flags for helmet-leading infractions. Teams with aggressive, hard-charging running backs and balanced attacks will be impacted more than teams that run pass-heavy offenses. 

So while nobody in the NFC East relies too heavily on the run (at least in a traditional sense), the Washington Redskins, Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys will likely be more vulnerable here than the New York Giants.

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At this morning's coaches breakfast at the NFL owners meetings in Phoenix, you could have asked Mike Shanahan for his thoughts on March Madness or Barack Obama's trip to Israel and he would have given you the same answer to both questions: 

Robert Griffin III needs to learn how to slide. 

The Washington Redskins head coach repeated that thought over and over again during his session with local and national media. Was he stating the obvious? Absolutely. However, the fact that sliding was something Shanahan emphasized so strongly indicates he believes that might be the key to keeping RG3 healthy going forward.

If you're a Redskins fan, I don't need to tell you that none of Griffin's injuries in 2012 came on read-option plays. But does that mean it's safe? Shanahan doesn't seem to think the scheme puts RG3 in any more danger. In fact, he suggests that it "helps a quarterback stay healthy" because it causes pass-rushers to lose steam.