A vote to sign/keep free agents is a vote to keep Dak long-term

[HungryLion]

Depends if you know what you're looking at. There certainly are several nuggets to be found in the middle rounds.

The odds are very very slim to get a day one starter though. Most of the ones that even end up being good, need time, at that stage of the draft.

 

[ConstantReboot]

I hope they bite the bullet and start a full rebuild, but not holding my breath.

So tired of watching this pointless malaise of a franchise.

So give me #3 in any form.

I'm all in for a complete rebuild. Now is the perfect time. I wouldn't mind if they also trade away Lamb and Parsons. They are both a 1st rounder or more.

I would rather us be like what Washington has. Lots of cap space and draft picks. It would be good to be picking in the top 5 for a few years rather than this stupid charade.

 

[Beast_from_East]

Why does he count towards 2025 if he is playing out his contract this season? Im confused about that one. Either way, let him leave and have a real team in 3-4 years with a chance to win. Cee Dee and Parsons will still be in prime years.

2025-2028 are void years for cap purposes, automatically void 2 days prior to the start of the 2025 league year and prorated money accelerates into the 2025 cap.

Thus, Dak becomes an unrestricted free agent free to sign with any team he wants to and Dallas has to eat approximately $40,460,000 in dead cap.

This $40 million in dead cap cannot be prorated as a June 1 because this is only for releases and Dak is not being released, the remaining years on his contract are being voided.

 

[windward]

I hope they bite the bullet and start a full rebuild, but not holding my breath.

So tired of watching this pointless malaise of a franchise.

So give me #3 in any form.

Uh… give me #2? Lol.

 

[erod]

Uh… give me #2? Lol.

#2 is a unicorn.

 

[GMO415]

Should Dak get $59 million a season just to crap the bed during the playoffs? No

 

[xwalker]

The “option” to re-sign is Dak’s, not the team’s. He should get away from the Cowboys. Dallas’ ownership is not very good at building an NFL roster.

2023:
1 Team won 13 games
3 teams won 12 games

i.e. Cowboys tied for 2nd in regular season wins...


https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2023/index.htm

 

[quickccc]

Dak's current cap hit is 55.5 million.

They don't have cap space to sign/keep free agents because they have not re-signed Dak.

If you want to move on from Dak, then be happy that they have not re-signed him and therefore happy that they have not signed/kept free agents.

They could create some cap space by re-structuring his current contract to push money into the 2025 and 2026 dummy years.
- If they do that, then there will be a 58M dead-money cap hit in 2025 if Dak leaves as a free agent.
- The 2026 money accelerates into 2025 if he leaves in 2025 (June 1st concept not possible in this situation).

Options (as of now):
1. Dak sucks in the playoffs and leaves via free agency.
2. Dak makes it to the Super Bowl. They have the option to re-sign him.
3. Trey Lance is awesome in during preseason in McCarthy's offense.
- 3a. They trade Dak and Trey Lance is the 2024 starter.
- 3b. Dak is the starter in 2024 and Trey Lance becomes the starter in 2025.

IMo, the emphasis will be soon to be future FA studs .. Lamb and Parsons contracts that will add to Dak's next (Huge) contract to be.

That's gonna be the highest paid QB (per annual salary rate or biggest guaranteed) ..Parsons as highest paid defensive player (over Garrett/Watt)
and Lamb the highest paid WR over Tyrek Hill .. we have to prepare and assume all will be top lead or very much in those ranges.

Cowboys may feel that they re in the same needle as say KC Chiefs in that they may have to be forced to make hard decisions even among their
most stud stars - in who to risk keeping (ala Chris Jones) ...and who to risk letting go (ala All pro CB L. Sneed)

Question: could they also not restructure contracts such as Diggs, Steele, Donovan, Hooker, Zack to help create cap room, along with future NFL raised team cap
down the road ?

 

[john van brocklin]

I hope they bite the bullet and start a full rebuild, but not holding my breath.

So tired of watching this pointless malaise of a franchise.

So give me #3 in any form.

4. Jerry steps down and we hire a professional GM.
Until Jerry ceases involvement with the team the other options don't really matter.

 

[Zekeats]

2025-2028 are void years for cap purposes, automatically void 2 days prior to the start of the 2025 league year and prorated money accelerates into the 2025 cap.

Thus, Dak becomes an unrestricted free agent free to sign with any team he wants to and Dallas has to eat approximately $40,460,000 in dead cap.

This $40 million in dead cap cannot be prorated as a June 1 because this is only for releases and Dak is not being released, the remaining years on his contract are being voided.

Best $40 they will ever spend on him

 

[Jarntt]

Dak's current cap hit is 55.5 million.

They don't have cap space to sign/keep free agents because they have not re-signed Dak.

If you want to move on from Dak, then be happy that they have not re-signed him and therefore happy that they have not signed/kept free agents.

They could create some cap space by re-structuring his current contract to push money into the 2025 and 2026 dummy years.
- If they do that, then there will be a 58M dead-money cap hit in 2025 if Dak leaves as a free agent.
- The 2026 money accelerates into 2025 if he leaves in 2025 (June 1st concept not possible in this situation).

Options (as of now):
1. Dak sucks in the playoffs and leaves via free agency.
2. Dak makes it to the Super Bowl. They have the option to re-sign him.
3. Trey Lance is awesome in during preseason in McCarthy's offense.
- 3a. They trade Dak and Trey Lance is the 2024 starter.
- 3b. Dak is the starter in 2024 and Trey Lance becomes the starter in 2025.

Totally untrue. They can let Dak play out his contract and re-work other players deals to sign whomever they wanted. They chose not to. They absolutely don't need to re-structure Dak to free up significant cap space. I for one am ecstatic they haven't extended Dak or to clarify, ecstatic that they haven't reduced his cap hit this year and kicked more dead money into outer years by redoing his salary from $29M to something like $1M. I'm fine with converting the $5M and moving $4M of it back, just don't kill future year's caps by restructuring this year. I'm not necessarily against signing Dak next year but doing nothing with his deal this year is the smart move.

 

[Jarntt]

Which players/contracts?

It has to come from a player with a significant base salary that can be converted to a restructure bonus.
- There must be additional years on the contract in order to spread out the bonus.

Diggs is the biggest one with cap savings of 6M with a restructure.

This is the last year on DLaw's contract.

They've already restructured Zack Martin by spreading his cap hit out over 4 void years.
- There will be a 26.46M cap hit for ZM in 2025 if he does not return.

This link has been posted many times and some are old at this point (LVE). I'm not saying personally I would do all of these but there is no doubt they could clear enough space to sign any player they want. Also, remember year 1 of any free agent contract is going to come with a minimal cap hit. The two obvious moves are to start with Lamb ($11M) and Diggs ($8M). I'll also note that Chris Jones signed a 5 year $160M deal and his year one cap hit is like $7M. I'll state it again. There is no issue with signing whichever free agent they wanted without even touching Dak's deal.

https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/li...65m-cap-space-without-extending-dak-prescott/

 

[rnr_honeybadger]

This hand wringing over cutting ties with a over hyped QB like Dak is the problem with this front office. Time and time again they have shown to be incapable of simply pulling the plug on something that has run its course. You saw this with Zeke and now you are seeing it with Dak. Want to see a franchise that is opposite of this? Just look at the 49-ers. This lack of vision and ability to make a call has hurt this franchise more than anything else.

 

[FLWarpigrpig]

Why does he count towards 2025 if he is playing out his contract this season? Im confused about that one. Either way, let him leave and have a real team in 3-4 years with a chance to win. Cee Dee and Parsons will still be in prime years.

Void years = cap cancer