Dallas Cowboys sign Adams for six years, more than $43 million11:58 PM CST on Thursday, February 28, 2008By CALVIN WATKINS and TODD ARCHER / The Dallas Morning News The Cowboys have made sure to secure the blind side of quarterback Tony Romo for six more years. Starting left tackle Flozell Adams signed a six-year deal worth more than $43 million – $15 million guaranteed – on Thursday, hours before he could have hit the free agent market. The length of the contract coincides with Romo's deal, which ends in 2013. And when Adams put his signature to paper at Valley Ranch, he received a phone call from the quarterback. "Flo's happy and the team is happy to cut that off at the pass before it got into a free-agent scramble," said Jordan Woy, Adams' agent. "I know he didn't want to go into it and really travel around and do that whole deal." With NFL free agency starting at 11:01 p.m. Thursday, the Cowboys also tendered one-year offers to running back Marion Barber and defensive end Chris Canty. Adams' deal puts him financially with some of the league's top left tackles. In 2005, Seattle signed Walter Jones to a seven-year, $52.5 million contract with a $16 million signing bonus, and St. Louis signed Orlando Pace to a seven-year, $52.8 million deal with a $15 million signing bonus. Recently, starting right tackle Marc Colombo said he was hopeful the team would keep Adams, who has started 146 games, to build consistency with the offensive line. Starting outside linebacker Greg Ellis said toward the end of the 2007 season that Adams' leadership was valuable to the club. Adams, who is normally soft-spoken and rarely talks to reporters, told his teammates how important it was to win a playoff game and to keep sharp in the latter half of the regular season. Since he was drafted out of Michigan State in 1998, Adams has missed only 10 games during his l0-year career, and that was in 2005 when he tore his right anterior cruciate ligament.Given his age (32), it's doubtful that Adams, who underwent minor knee surgery before the 2007 season, will play out the contract. He will be 37 when it expires. "Flo said the last thing he wanted to do was go through a rebuilding phase," Woy said. "He said, 'I want to be with a team that can win and has a chance to win a Super Bowl.I think we've got as good a chance as anybody out there.' " Left tackle Flozell Adams has played in four of the last five Pro Bowls. The tenders to Barber and Canty give the Cowboys the right to match any offer sheet presented. Barber was tendered the team's highest offer, a one-year base salary of $2.562 million. If an opposing team wants to sign Barber, and the Cowboys refuse to match the offer, Dallas would receive first- and third-round draft picks. The Cowboys would like to sign Barber to a long-term deal and talked with agent Drew Rosenhaus about that last week. Canty was tendered the team's second-highest offer, a one-year deal for $2.017 million. Any team which signs Canty would have to surrender a first-round pick to the Cowboys. Also, backup center and guard Joe Berger was given a one-year offer for $927,000.That's the lowest possible tender, and a team would have to give the Cowboys a sixth-round pick as compensation if it was to sign Berger. Running back Tyson Thompson, an Irving native who lost the kick returners job in late October, wasn't tendered an offer. He is now an unrestricted free agent.
