DALLAS — The Dallas Cowboys this weekend got a chance to relax with a win in their back pocket, having secured victory over the New York Giants on Thursday night.
But Cowboys fans were likely still covering their eyes Sunday night.
That's because Derrick Henry and the Baltimore Ravens steamrolled the Buffalo Bills, 35-10, as Henry racked up 199 rushing yards and a touchdown. Henry's score was an 87-yard run, proving again that the 30-year-old workhorse still has the juice.
What does any of that have to do with the Cowboys? Well, Henry could have been one, depending on who you believe.
Henry, a Dallas resident who lives and trains here in the offseason, indicated in the offseason that he had interest in joining the Cowboys, calling Dallas "a perfect situation" because of where he lives.
But "they weren't really interested," he told The Pivot podcast back in April.
"[The Cowboys] ain't holla at me at all," Henry said when asked if Dallas was in the mix.
"It would've been crazy," Henry said of possibly playing for Dallas. "I thought it'd been some type of reach out, some type of talks or whatever. They never reached out, you know what I'm saying? I don't really know too much about their organization. All I know is what I hear. I was talking to my agent. They weren't really interested. It is what it is. Like I said earlier, I'm gonna be where I'm gonna be, and I feel like Baltimore was the perfect spot."
The salt in the wound here is that Henry now leads the NFL in rushing, with 480 yards and six yards per carry.
The Cowboys, meanwhile, only have one rusher over 100 yards on the season -- Rico Dowdle at 134 -- and both Dowdle and Ezekiel Elliott are averaging under four yards per carry.
The Cowboys' team rushing total is 301 yards across four games. The Ravens' Henry-led attack (with plenty of help from sprinting quarterback Lamar Jackson) is already at 881 yards on the season.
Now the sticking point here is whether or not the Cowboys could have actually signed Henry, given their salary cap situation and the big spending they've had to account for lately. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones after last week's loss to the Ravens said Dallas couldn't afford Henry.
Henry signed a two-year, $16 million deal with Baltimore, with a cap hit of $5.105 million this year and $10.85 million next year, according to Spotrac. But even with the Cowboys' salary cap as tight as it's been, the general consensus seems to be that Jones and the Dallas front office could have found a place for Henry if they really wanted him.
ESPN insider Adam Schefter said as much last week, also pointing out that the Cowboys are paying third-string quarterback Trey Lance $5 million this year.
Also, as Schefter noted, Henry shares the same agent, Todd France, with Dak Prescott.
The reality is that salary caps can be manipulated in various ways, as former agent Joel Corry pointed out in this piece for CBS Sports.
Henry's salary cap number could have been as low as $2.768 million, Corry wrote, by adding so-called "dummy/voiding" years to his contract to prorate his signing bonus. The Cowboys used a similar tactic in renegotiating receiver Brandin Cooks' contract when they acquired him from the Texans, Corry pointed out.
But all of that might as well be useless hand-wringing at this point: Henry is locked into the Ravens, and rolling, and the Cowboys are trotting out a running back by-committee, to meager results so far.
The one bright spot for Dallas is that despite the Ravens' dominance, and the Cowboys' recent struggles, both teams are 2-2. It's a week-to-week league.
