Cowboys Move On, Score Igor Olshansky

Go figure: The Cowboys finally make a solid, uncontroversial personnel move, and it barely registers a blip on the radar screen. While the football world is still working to come to grips with Terrell Owens' release (and, to a far lesser extent, Roy Williams' release), Dallas snuck into the free agent market and pulled defensive end Igor Olshansky out of San Diego.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Olshansky's deal is worth $18 million over four years -- or two years and $24 million less than what former Cowboy DE Chris Canty got from the Giants. Olshansky is guaranteed $8 million on his contract.

The monetary impact of Olshansky's contract is especially important given the $9 million or so cap hit that Owens is causing, even though Williams' ouster saved Dallas $2 million.

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A native of Ukraine, Olshansky played in all 16 regular-season games for the Chargers last season and started 13 of those, notching two sacks. In 2007, he started every San Diego game and had 3 1/2 sacks. Those number are just one sack shy of what Canty produced over the past two seasons for Dallas. Neither guy is ever going to produce big-time sack numbers, but Dallas didn't expect that from Canty, and the 'Boys certainly won't from Olshansky either.

This should be a relatively smooth transition, given that Olshansky played under then-defensive coordinator Wade Phillips in San Diego for three seasons. He's familiar with what Dallas' plan of attack is defensively, and that's a bonus.