Is there any chance Dez Bryant could return to the Cowboys?

The Dallas Cowboys need help. While an easy early schedule helped spark a 2-2 start and a flagging NFC East has left them just a half game from the top of their division, only two teams in the league have scored fewer points than Jerry Jones’ club to start 2018.

With Demarcus Lawrence leading a ferocious defensive onslaught, the Cowboys’ playoff hopes hinge on an offensive revival. While Ezekiel Elliott has returned to his 2016 rookie of the year form, he’s had little help from the passing game around him. Dallas boasts a mostly anonymous receiving and tight end corps cobbled together with players better suited for supporting roles than WR1 duty. But there is one man who could add some gravitas to that unit and give the offense an extra scoring punch — and he’s been watching the Cowboys closely all season.

Dez Bryant spent his first eight seasons in the league as a Cowboy, but got sent to the free agent pile this offseason as his declining production failed to match his eight-figure salary. The relationship between the two sides publicly turned sour when a team executive blamed Dak Prescott’s struggles on Bryant’s influence — and Bryant immediately fired back on Twitter.

But the player and his former team appear to have patched things up, at least from the wide receiver’s perspective. And it’s got him itching for a reunion.

It continued after the Cowboys lost in overtime to the Texans in Week 5:

The All-Pro wide receiver’s return to the world of football has been limited to social media as dalliances with the Patriots and Browns led nowhere. He’s now the league’s highest-profile free agent — and his best option now may be with the team that cut him months earlier. Would Bryant accept a pay cut to land back in Dallas? And would the Cowboys even want him?

Bryant has recently made indications he’s ready to return to the field after putting personal issues that may have kept him from signing a contract behind him.

The question now is who will want him. The three-time Pro Bowler found a soft market waiting for him when he hit free agency back in April, and interest never really materialized in the soon-to-be 30-year-old. The Browns had a major need at wideout and brought Bryant in for an interview during training camp. That allegedly led to a contract offer, but no deal materialized.

It’s a move that would have made sense, but Cleveland is proving it doesn’t need Bryant. In the intervening weeks, the team made a high-profile quarterback switch and watched Jarvis Landry prove worthy of the $75.5 million deal he signed this offseason. He’s been bolstered by an improving Rashard Higgins and talented rookie Antonio Callaway. While that receiving corps could benefit from an upgrade, it’s still been good enough to give Baker Mayfield plenty of targets — and made coach Hue Jackson confident enough to finally end Josh Gordon’s tumultuous tenure in northeast Ohio.

Bryant also visited the Patriots during training camp, though it’s unclear just what the purpose of that trip was. Since then, he hasn’t been shy about appreciation his for the New England offense.

New England’s lack of WR depth and a sputtering start to the season made Foxborough an intriguing destination, but the team’s made two major non-Bryant additions that have helped right Bill Belichick’s ship. The Patriots traded for Browns wideout Josh Gordon before Week 3, then watched former Pro Bowler Julian Edelman return from his four-game suspension. Together, they combined for nine catches for 107 yards and a touchdown in Week 5, taking the pressure from an overtaxed lineup of targets in a win over the Colts.

Before touring Ohio and Massachusetts, Bryant was offered a three-year, $21 million deal from the Ravens that would have made him the highest-profile acquisition in a veteran receiver spending spree. Bryant turned that deal down in favor of finding a one-year contract that would allow him to rebuild his value and sign an even bigger long-term pact in 2019.

His presence hasn’t been missed in Baltimore. The Ravens have staged an offensive renewal behind a recharged Joe Flacco and his restocked receiving corps. The team currently ranks fifth in the league in scoring offense thanks, in part, to a passing offense led by John Brown, Michael Crabtree, and Willie Snead — three veteran wideouts who didn’t balk at Baltimore’s multi-year contract offers.

With those three teams no longer in need, Bryant’s best options become limited to two rebuilding teams throwing rookie quarterbacks into the fire (the Cardinals and Bills), another bottoming-out franchise in Seattle, and a potential role catching passes from Blake Bortles.

With the exception of Jacksonville, none of those destinations can match Dallas in terms of combining on-field opportunity and winning football. But none of them seem to want a player who has scored 14 touchdowns in 29 games the past two seasons.

Dallas needs wide receiver help, but appears to have ruled out reuniting with Bryant, even at a discounted price. Jones was unambiguous when it came to seeing the former Cowboy star in silver and blue again.

“We feel good about Dez and wish him the very best,” Jones told 105.3 The Fan Friday. “Trust me, if it were in our best interests, his and ours, he’d be on the field for the Cowboys.”

Jones may not be the most reliable narrator for this story. Last week on that show he said the Rams and the Cowboys were basically the same team. But losing Jones’ backing could shut the door on any chance of a Bryant return. The longtime owner was one of Bryant’s biggest supporters inside the franchise, and the two remain close enough to attend Jay-Z and Beyonce concerts together, even after the wideout called his former exec “clueless” on Twitter.

If Jones has made peace with Bryant’s tenure in Arlington ending after eight years, it seems like a safe bet a reunion is off the table.

But who knows where the next few weeks will lead the Cowboys. Dallas is already dealing with nagging injuries to Tavon Austin, Cole Beasley, and Terrance Williams — three players who have combined for 23 of a total 44 catches from the team’s wide receivers. A season-ending malady and an outside shot at an NFC East title could be all it takes to change Jones’ mind.

And that’s good for Dez. Because if the Cowboys don’t come calling, Bryant could spend the entirety of 2018 commenting on games via Twitter instead of playing in them.