A year ago, I was on record saying the Dak Prescott to Dez Bryant connection could lead the cowboys back to the promise land.

A year later, Bryant is no longer a Dallas Cowboy. The two couldn’t make the connection work. Patience ran thin with Dez after three straight injury plagued seasons where he under performed.

According to multiple people, there was personnel, including teammates inside the Star that wanted him gone and ultimately, got their way. Stephen Jones is on record saying that Dez can be a distraction with his sideline “antics.” We can sit here and speculate who the other people are for hours.

Instead, let’s see where the Cowboys go from here. The Cowboys 30 pre draft visits include many receivers, including Alabama receiver Calvin Ridley, Maryland receiver D.J Moore, and another Oklahoma state receiver, James Washington.

The Cowboys have clearly wanted to clean up the receiver room all offseason. They made a hard push for Sammy Watkins, and that deal was apparently so close that one Cowboy staffer stated “we thought we were going to get him,” they tried grabbing Allen Robinson. They signed Allen Hurns and Deonte Thompson to provide “competition.”

None of the names mentioned are going to step in right away and provide the threat to defenses that Bryant did. Even if you say Dez has lost a step or he is not worth the money he was set to make, you can’t dispute the fact that defenses were still putting safety help over the top and completely impacting how defenses defended the Cowboys offense. That help over the top opened up opportunities for Ezekiel Elliott and made it easier to hit receivers like Cole Beasley, Terrance Williams and all the other receivers because they were wide open.

In my opinion, all the talk about making the offense “Dak friendly” just became a whole lot tougher in 2018, a year that is important for Dak to prove he is the guy.