Buffalo Bills v Detroit Lions | Todd Rosenberg/GettyImages

This Dallas Cowboys’ offseason is nothing to write home about so far. While they deserve credit for re-signing Osa Odighizuwa and making a few intriguing additions in free agency, they haven’t made any moves to suggest they’ll be a contender next season.

What they have done, though, is improve their depth at various positions, namely cornerback and linebacker.

A team known for taking on reclamation projects, Dallas acquired former first-round cornerback Kaiir Elam from Buffalo and linebacker Kenneth Murray from the Titans. Murray has built up more equity in the league than Elam, but that isn’t saying much.

Like Murray at Oklahoma, Elam garnered major hype coming out of Florida in 2022 but his Bills tenure was a massive letdown. The former Gator started just 12 games in three years and appeared in 29 of a possible 50 regular-season games.

Elam comes to the Cowboys with a huge chip on his shoulder and he peeled back the curtain on what went wrong with the Bills in his initial press conference with the Dallas media.

Kaiir Elam takes aim at Bills in first comments since being traded to the Cowboys

“Coming to Buffalo, I was a kid that just wanted to improve and learn and really show off my talents, but I was always put in the back seat,” Elam said, via Ryan Talbot of newyorkupstate.com. “I continued to put my head down and work, continued to make plays throughout the season and in the playoffs and stuff like that. I just took everything I learned from there and all the baggage and improvements I felt like I needed to make and just packaged it up and worked on it every day. I don’t really see it as a negative. I really just see it as a growing opportunity for me to go shine somewhere else.”

It’s impossible to say why it didn’t work out for Elam in Buffalo.

He was universally regarded as one of the top cornerbacks in the 2022 class, so he wasn’t over-drafted. He never allowed higher than a 74.1 passer rating in his three seasons at Florida and allowed a 51.4% completion rate in his final season in 2021. The SEC is arguably the best pound-for-pound conference in the country, so it’s not like Elam went up against slouches.

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For whatever reason, it hasn’t translated to the NFL. Elam was outplayed by Christian Benford, who was drafted by Buffalo the same year, as a rookie, and also struggled to beat out 2020 draft choice Dane Jackson and trade acquisition Rasul Douglas.

It is clear Elam feels his development wasn’t prioritized by Buffalo. Maybe there’s some truth to that, but he did not perform up to snuff when given opportunities. He also battled injuries.

Confidence is half the battle with professional athletes. It is very possible Elam’s was completely shot by the end of last season, when he was picked on by the Chiefs in the AFC title game.

There is a ton of gray area here, but one this is for certain: Elam desperately needed a change of scenery and Dallas desperately needs more cornerback depth. He’ll have a path to playing time with the Cowboys, but Matt Eberflus won’t hand it to him.