Dallas City News

The last time we saw the Dallas Cowboys playing football, they hosted a Wild Card playoff game after securing the No. 2 seed in the NFC. Then, some stuff happened, some touchdowns, some interceptions, and yada, yada, yada, the Cowboys season was over.

A new year brings new hope, but already those hopes are being diminished by a frustrating offseason where we have watched the front office sit on their hands while the rest of the league gets better. At least that’s what it feels like. While the Cowboys look like a team all out of sorts, that’s really not the case. They have a plan and they are executing that plan. Today, we’ll try to understand their plan a little better by stating the problem, identifying the root cause, and offering up their proposed solution.

PROBLEM: Cowboys aren’t spending money

The Cowboys aren’t big spenders in the offseason so very few were surprised when free agency came and went without any notable new players being signed. The players they did sign were low-cost void fillers like Eric Kendricks ($2.9M), Ezekiel Elliott ($2M), and Royce Freeman ($1.1M). That’s a whopping $6 million in free agency spending for those who don’t have a calculator handy.

The lack of free agent spending isn’t anything new. Everyone saw this coming. What caught people off guard was the unwillingness to retain their own players. Tyron Smith, Tyler Biadasz, Tony Pollard, and Dorance Armstrong all grabbed nice paychecks with other teams. The old “we like our guys” adage turned into “we like our guys if they’re dirt cheap!” Instead of keeping the top players, the Cowboys handed out a small amount of cash to keep Jourdan Lewis ($2.8M), Chuma Edoga ($1.3M), and Rico Dowdle ($1.3M) around for another year.

The Cowboys were right in the thick of things last season only to come up short, so watching them lose key contributors and replace them with JAGs doesn’t make fans feel very warm and fuzzy inside. Why would they do this?

ROOT CAUSE: They’ve dug themselves a financial hole

If you asked the fanbase why the Cowboys aren’t spending money, most of them would provide a very straightforward answer. They’re cheap. This implies the Cowboys could spend money if they wanted to, but are choosing not to. We know they’re mindful of that salary cap thing, but it’s not too difficult to maneuver around it and push money out into future years. They just have to want to do it, and they don’t, right?

Actually, wrong.

The Cowboys have done an enormous amount of can-kicking to where they’ve created quite a large bar tab. If you looked at Dak Prescott’s contract alone, you’d see that they have only accounted for $50 million of his $160 million deal (31%) despite being in the last year of the deal. The team still has to account for $110 of his cost between his $55 million cap hit this year and another $55 million spread out over the four void years added to his contract.

The Prescott restructure is huge, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. The Cowboys have only accounted for $11 million of DeMarcus Lawrence’s $40 million deal. Zack Martin still has over $50 million left on the books, and Brandin Cooks will still cost the team $16 million. In total, the Cowboys still have to account for $206 million for just four players who aren’t even under contract after the 2024 season. That’s madness.

Restructures can add up in a hurry, but they are not the only outstanding bills due to services no longer being rendered. The Cowboys have nearly $30 million in dead money thanks to previously restructured contracts and cap casualties.

Honestly, the dead money hit isn’t bad at all and ranks outside the top 20 for the season, but when you add it to the bill, it makes an enormous debt even larger.

The point here is not to make us all feel bad about the outstanding debt the Cowboys have built up but to explain that these last three years have been possible because of the team’s willingness to move money around to field a good roster. Trades for players like Cooks and Stephon Gilmore were made possible by restructuring deals. In other words, the Cowboys have had their chances, and they came up short. So, now what do they do?

Some have conceded that the Cowboys are standing pat in some sort of “rebuild” mindset where they just bite the bullet now and get themselves back on track when some of these bills are paid off. Rest assured, that’s not what’s going on here. Whether you buy the hype or not, the Cowboys are here to compete.

SOLUTION: Roll with who ya got

The offseason losses combined with an embarrassing Wild Card upset have created this idea that the Cowboys don’t have a good football team. They do. They have strong cornerstone players like Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, Micah Parsons, and Trevon Diggs. As long as these players are re-signed (and they will be), they’ll be in great shape. And all of them play premium positions. They also have a couple of young players like Tyler Smith and DaRon Bland who are already All-Pros after just two years in the league. And when you run down the roster with players like Martin, Lawrence, Jake Ferguson, Cooks, Osa Odighizuwa, Malik Hooker, Brandon Aubrey, and Bryan Anger, this is a pretty talented squad.

If the Cowboys can get some contribution from the slew of younger guys they have on the roster, this has the making of a team that can do some stuff. With youngsters like Sam Williams, DeMarvion Overshown, Tyler Guyton, Marshawn Kneeland, Cooper Beebe, Mazi Smith, Markquese Bell, Marist Liufau, Luke Schoonmaker, and Jalen Tolbert, the Cowboys don’t need all of them to pan out. Just some of them.

For Dallas, we know the situation they’re in. And we know why. The Cowboys are adamant they have the right solution and that the players on this roster will be enough to make some noise this season. All that’s left is to see if they are right.