NFL Free Agency: Where Will Marcus Spears Land Next Year?

The Dallas Cowboys will be faced with plenty of decisions this offseason.  

To be quite frank, expect the 'Boys to clean house this year and start anew with Jason Garrett in charge for good.

After a 6-10 season that saw the players turn their backs on Wade Phillips, the Cowboys' future looks semi-bright. With Garrett's "interim" tag being removed, the Cowboys went in-house and found their future signal-caller.  

Of the many questions that need to be answered, a number of them deal with their atrocious defense; namely, one of the defensive lineman in their rotation, LSU's Marcus Spears, though they will also have two other defensive lineman that will be up for free-agency this year. Jason Hatcher and Stephen Bowen are also going to look for their paydays from some NFL team.

Likely, Dallas will only re-sign one of these guys.

Spears will likely command the most money and probably will end up being the odd man out in this instance. He's not as well-suited as some of their other defensive players in their 3-4 scheme.  

Unfortunately for Jerry Jones and co., "Big D" was never the case in Dallas in 2010 as it had been in the past.

In previous seasons, Dallas relied heavily on its defense to succeed, but not this year. Their defense really dragged them down all season.

Remember that Phillips was supposed to be a "defensive-minded" coach. So much for that, as the 'Boys gave up an average of 30 points per game with Phillips at the helm in 2010.   

Now, he's the Houston Texans' defensive coordinator.  

Spears was a highly-touted defensive lineman out of LSU, yet hasn't lived up to his "hype" in Dallas. In fact, Spears has been a Texas-sized disappoint.  

Spears' injury in 2010 won't help him get a new contract from the Cowboys or anyone else for that matter. Even prior to his injury, Spears hadn't produced as he was expected to.  

In six seasons in Dallas, Spears has just eight sacks and an average of 30 tackles per season.  

Numbers don't lie folks, and although Spears hasn't been all that good, it's hard to argue that his presence was missed in Dallas.  

Though they were 5-2 without Spears and Phillips, they definitely could have used a player of Spears' caliber in their pass rush.  

As a team, the Cowboys registered 36 sacks this season and ranked right near the middle of the pack. 

Shockingly, Spears was drafted in the same class as carnivorous linebacker/defensive lineman DeMarcus Ware. Ware has made headlines as a top pass-rusher and is one player that the opposing team needs to game plan for. He's become that much of a threat and is disruptive once he gets into the opposing backfield.  

As usual, just about any team could use a pass-rusher. The problem though becomes the fact that Spears isn't the established pass-rusher he was expected to be.  

A good defense oftentimes begins and ends with the pass rush. Teams that are able to pressure the quarterback are usually near the top of the league. They're able to force turnovers and disrupt the flow of an offense. This is where Spears could help a defense out.

Teams like Denver, Jacksonville and Tampa Bay, among others, are all missing that explosive pass-rusher off the edge. In a new setting, Spears could be a flier that a team takes a chance on next season.  

All of the three aforementioned teams finished with fewer than 27 sacks. Will one of these teams, or someone else take a gamble on this 2005 first-round bust?