Is It Time for the Dallas Cowboys to Give Up on Morris Claiborne?

Well, is it?

The question should be a rhetorical one at best considering cornerback Morris Claiborne’s current AWOL status is compounded by him already arguably being the biggest draft bust in Dallas Cowboys history.

Billed by owner Jerry Jones as the best cornerback prospect in the draft since Hall of Famer Deion Sanders, the Cowboys traded two picks to move up from 16th to sixth overall in the 2012 draft to select Claiborne out of LSU.

So far the Cowboys have received three interceptions and just 16 pass deflections in 28 games from Claiborne.

It’s even more telling that, following his third career interception, which sealed a 34-31 victory against the St. Louis Rams last Sunday, Claiborne has been benched in favor of cornerback Orlando Scandrick for the Week 4 matchup against the New Orleans Saints.

Jae C. Hong/Associated Press

"We'll evaluate them and see who can play best," a coy Jason Garrett said in refusing to name Claiborne the starter on Monday. "We'll do that again this week and determine how we play guys all throughout our roster."

That was an easy decision—considering Scandrick, despite joining the Cowboys as a modest fifth-round pick 2008, has been the team’s best cornerback the past two years and was the best defensive player in training camp this year.

In fact, Scandrick initially replaced Claiborne in the starting lineup in Week 2 of last year, keeping the job through the season, the offseason and training camp.

Claiborne only started in the first two games because Scandrick sat out due to an NFL suspension.

The two played almost the same amount of snaps against the Rams in Scandrick’s first game back as the Cowboys gauged his conditioning.

“Scandrick arguably had the best training camp of any player we had, certainly in the top three or four,” Jones said when talking about the decision on his local radio show on Tuesday. “So we’ve got to look real hard. We’ve got a guy that’s playing lights out, played really good the other day, Scandrick. [He played] probably as well as anybody did in the secondary.”

The inevitable switch was coming anyway, but given Scandrick’s strong play against the Rams and Claiborne’s costly struggles, the question was long rendered moot.

Well, to everybody that is, except for Claiborne, whose mental toughness has been an issue since coming to the Cowboys as well as his lack of playmaking production.

That’s a bad combination for a cornerback.

Yet upon hearing the news of his demotion to second string behind Scandrick, even though he would still log a lot snaps in nickel defense as he did last year, Claiborne reportedly stormed out of the team’s facility, missing practice, film review and meetings.

This was no surprise.

Everyone knew this move was coming.

It was certainly hastened by Claiborne's poor play against the Rams when he even admitted “stinking up” before the interception.

He also said the interception didn’t absolve his performance.

"Not in my eyes," Claiborne said after the game. "It seemed to do that with everybody else—not in my eyes.

"I'm ready to go learn from this tape and get better from it. Like I told the DBs, no matter what the outcome is, I can't go out and play like that. If we want to be the No. 1 defense in the league, on my end, I can't go out like that."

The Cowboys weren’t going to let him go out like that and thus made the right move.

The real question is whether Claiborne should also be benched in the nickel in favor of Sterling Moore, a former undrafted free agent who has outplayed him all season.

Lynne Sladky/Associated Press

Garrett frequently talks about playing the best players, regardless of whether they came from, how they got here and their pedigree.

“It really doesn’t matter where guys come from,” Garrett said. “We’ll evaluate them and see who can play best. We’ll do that again this week and determine how we play guys all throughout our roster.”

The Cowboys used that premise when they made Scandrick the permanent starter over Claiborne last year. It should apply now with Moore.

And if that’s the case, the situation begs the aforementioned question: Is it time for the Dallas Cowboys to give up on Morris Claiborne?

Fittingly, Claiborne may have made the decision for them by walking out on the team on Tuesday. The Cowboys could fine him for missing practice or exhibiting conduct detrimental to the team.

They could also deactivate him for Sunday’s game against the Saints even if he comes back.

Claiborne’s rookie contract runs through 2015. It’s already a foregone conclusion that the team was not going to pick up the fifth-year option, guaranteeing him more than $10 million in 2016.

Now the question is whether the Cowboys would walk away after this season by releasing him.

Earlier in the day on Tuesday, Jones said the Cowboys were not going to give up on Claiborne while acknowledging he lived up to draft-day expectations.

“We’re not giving up on him at all,” Jones said on his radio show. “Is he what we had hoped for at this point when we drafted him with the sixth pick, gave up a pick to go up to the sixth pick to get him? No. But he’s going to be a good player.”

But that was before he angrily walked out.

Jon Machota of The Dallas Morning News provided Jones' quote from April 2012:

"

Jerry Jones in April 2012: "Deion was special with his burst. But certainly [Mo Claiborne] is the best they have graded for us since Deion."

— Jon Machota (@jonmachota) September 24, 2014"

As of now the Cowboys don’t know when he’s coming back—they hope on Wednesday—but then it might be too late.

It already is for his future in Dallas.

All quotations obtained firsthand, unless otherwise noted.