The Cowboys will bring back Morris Claiborne for another season, reports Mike Garafolo of FOX Sports (via Twitter). According to Garafolo, the two sides have worked out a one-year contract for Claiborne to continue his career in Dallas. Todd Archer of ESPN.com tweets that the deal has a base value of $3MM, and can be worth up to $3.75MM.
The sixth overall pick in the 2012 draft, Claiborne hasn’t lived up to his draft billing. Since a rookie season in which he started 15 games, made 55 tackles, and recovered a pair of fumbles, the LSU product has made just 21 more starts for Dallas, having been plagued by injuries and underperformance.
In 2015, Claiborne started 11 games for Dallas, but he failed to grab even one interception for the first time in his career, and Pro Football Focus ranked him 104th out of 111 qualified cornerbacks.
As a 2012 first-round pick, Claiborne had been eligible for a fifth-year option for the 2016 season, but the Cowboys turned down that option last spring. Had they exercised it, Claiborne would have been on the books for $11MM+ in 2016, so the Cowboys got him back at a much less expensive rate.
With Claiborne locked up, the Cowboys aren’t necessarily done looking for cornerback help. They have been linked to Nolan Carroll, and Archer tweets that Carroll still could be in play, though nothing is imminent.
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