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The Cowboys have built through the draft more efficiently than most other NFL teams.
It's widely accepted that the best way to construct a football roster is by being successful in the draft. One of the phrases I kept hearing and reading throughout draft season was "building through the draft"; how important it is, how it's the key to success in the NFL, how dynasties are built off it and so on.
And while it's true that teams that invest heavily in free agency seldom see a good return on their money, that doesn't mean that "building through free agency" is necessarily wrong - especially if your team's drafts have not produced the hoped-for results.
Some might even argue that the draft and free agency should be used as key avenues to improve the team, and that a choice acquisition (or two) in free agency might be all it needs for the team to take the next step.
To see where the Cowboy stand on this draft vs free agency continuum, I decided to look at the 15 top cap hits on the 2017 Cowboys roster. And much to my surprise, I found that only two of the top 15 Cowboys players (as measured by their 2017 cap hit) joined the Cowboys as free agents after playing for another NFL team. Here's an overview:
Rank
Player
POS
Cap Hit
1
1
Dez Bryant
WR
17.0
2
2
Jason Witten
TE
12.3
3
3
Tyrone Crawford
DT
10.4
4
4
Tyron Smith
LT
8.8
5
5
Sean Lee
OLB
7.3
6
6
Ezekiel Elliott
RB
5.7
7
7
Orlando Scandrick
CB
5.3
8
8
Travis Frederick
C
4.5
9
9
Cole Beasley
WR
4.5
10
10
Cedric Thornton
DE
4.3
11
11
Dan Bailey
K
4.0
12
12
James Hanna
TE
3.0
13
13
Zack Martin
G
2.8
14
14
Benson Mayowa
OLB
2.6
15
15
Byron Jones
CB
2.4
Cedric Thornton and Benson Mayowa are the only two players in the top 15 for the Cowboys who didn't start their NFL career in Dallas. Sure, the Cowboys have many more free agents (they signed Nolan Carroll, Stephen Paea, Byron Bell, Jonathan Cooper, Damontre Moore, and Robert Blanton ins free agency this year), and have more former free agents on their roster.
And while not all 15 names above are made up exclusively of draft picks, the undrafted free agents on this list (Cole Beasley, Dan Bailey) both joined the Cowboys as rookies and played their first NFL snaps for the Cowboys, so they can rightfully be considered home-grown talent.
Still, for a team that's annually linked to almost every one of the highest-priced free agents, and still has a reputation as a free spender in free agency, having just two former free agents in their top 15 feels like a pretty low number. So I did the same exercise for the three other NFC East teams to get a feel for how they compare to the Cowboys. Here's what I found:
Giants
Eagles
Commanders
Eli Manning
QB
19.7
Jason Peters
LT
11.7
Kirk Cousins
QB
23.9
Olivier Vernon
DE
16.0
Lane Johnson
RT
9.8
Josh Norman
CB
20.0
Janoris Jenkins
CB
15.0
Alshon Jeffery
WR
9.5
Trent Williams
LT
15.1
Damon Harrison
DT
10.6
Fletcher Cox
DT
9.4
Ryan Kerrigan
OLB
11.7
Dominique Rodgers-C.
CB
9.0
Vinny Curry
DE
9.0
Terrelle Pryor
WR
6.0
Justin Pugh
G
8.8
Brandon Graham
OLB
7.5
Brandon Scherff
G
5.8
Jason Pierre-Paul
DE
7.3
Malcolm Jenkins
FS
7.5
Jordan Reed
TE
5.7
Brandon Marshall
WR
4.5
Brandon Brooks
G
7.2
Shawn Lauvao
G
5.0
J.T. Thomas
OLB
4.0
Mychal Kendricks
ILB
6.6
Terrell McClain
DT
3.7
Ereck Flowers
LT
3.9
Jason Kelce
C
6.2
Morgan Moses
RT
3.6
Shane Vereen
RB
3.9
Carson Wentz
QB
6.1
Colt McCoy
QB
3.6
Jonathan Casillas
OLB
3.7
Ryan Mathews
RB
5.0
Vernon Davis
TE
3.3
Eli Apple
CB
3.4
Torrey Smith
WR
4.9
D.J. Swearinger
SS
3.3
Odell Beckham, Jr.
WR
3.3
Nigel Bradham
OLB
4.8
Stacy McGee
DT
3.2
Dwayne Harris
WR
3.3
Darren Sproles
RB
4.0
DeAngelo Hall
CB
3.1
The Giants (9 free agents), Commanders (9), and Eagles (8), whether by chance or by design, have all built teams that rely heavily on outside talent, be it in the form of free agents, players brought in via trade, waiver wire pick ups, etc.
This can be a viable option of course, as it doesn't say anywhere in the NFL rule book that you have to build through the draft.
A look at the last two Super Bowl participants shows that both approaches can be successful: The Patriots are heavy on homegrown talent, while the Falcons are heavy on outside talent.
Patriots
Falcons
Tom Brady
QB
14.0
Matt Ryan
QB
23.8
Nate Solder
LT
11.2
Julio Jones
WR
13.9
Devin McCourty
FS
10.9
Robert Alford
CB
9.6
Stephon Gilmore
CB
8.6
Alex Mack
C
9.1
Julian Edelman
WR
7.4
Dontari Poe
DT
8.0
Rob Gronkowski
TE
6.8
Mohamed Sanu
WR
7.4
Patrick Chung
SS
6.2
Andy Levitre
G
6.6
Dont'a Hightower
ILB
5.3
Adrian Clayborn
DE
5.4
Dwayne Allen
TE
4.9
Jake Matthews
LT
5.2
Stephen Gostkowski
K
4.5
Brooks Reed
OLB
5.0
Mike Gillislee
RB
4.0
Desmond Trufant
CB
4.5
Malcolm Butler
CB
3.9
Derrick Shelby
DE
4.3
Alan Branch
DT
3.8
Vic Beasley
DE
4.0
Duron Harmon
SS
3.5
Matt Schaub
QB
3.5
Marcus Cannon
LT
3.4
Matt Bryant
K
3.1
As a Cowboys fan, I am of course naturally inclined to say that whatever the Cowboys are doing is the best (and certainly better than whatever it is the Giants, Eagles, or Commanders are doing.), but that may be a little shortsighted in this case.
Given the constraints of the salary cap, it may be difficult building a team entirely out of free agents, but there's no reason to think adding free agents to your team is a bad thing, though there is one downside to this approach. Free agent acquisitions share one defining characteristic: their old team did not want to re-sign them, at least not for the price the player is demanding. Which is why free agents end up as busts more frequently than players who sign free agency contracts with the teams that drafted them or signed them to their first NFL deal.
Although the majority of NFL teams are free agent-heavy in their top 15 cap hits, there are some teams that look similar to the Cowboys in the make up of their top 15:
Bengals
Packers
Steelers
Player POS Cap Hit Player POS Cap Hit Player POS Cap HitAndy Dalton
QB
15.7
Aaron Rodgers
QB
20.3
Ben Roethlisberger
QB
18.2
A.J. Green
WR
13.5
Clay Matthews
OLB
15.1
Antonio Brown
WR
13.5
Geno Atkins
DT
10.6
Randall Cobb
WR
12.7
Le'Veon Bell
RB
12.1
Dre Kirkpatrick
CB
9.4
Jordy Nelson
WR
11.6
Maurkice Pouncey
C
11.0
Adam Jones
CB
8.2
Mike Daniels
DE
10.4
David DeCastro
G
11.0
Carlos Dunlap
DE
7.3
Bryan Bulaga
RT
7.9
Cameron Heyward
DE
10.4
George Iloka
SS
5.4
Morgan Burnett
SS
7.0
Mike Mitchell
FS
8.1
Michael Johnson
DE
5.1
David Bakhtiari
LT
6.0
Marcus Gilbert
RT
7.3
Brandon LaFell
WR
5.0
Nick Perry
OLB
5.9
Ramon Foster
G
3.6
Clint Boling
G
5.0
Martellus Bennett
TE
3.9
Ryan Shazier
ILB
3.0
Tyler Eifert
TE
4.8
Mason Crosby
K
3.6
Arthur Moats
OLB
2.9
Vontaze Burfict
OLB
4.7
Letroy Guion
DE
3.4
William Gay
CB
2.6
Kevin Minter
ILB
4.3
Lane Taylor
G
3.1
Bud Dupree
OLB
2.5
Shawn Williams
FS
4.0
Davon House
CB
2.8
Vince Williams
ILB
2.5
Giovani Bernard
RB
3.7
HaHa Clinton-Dix
FS
2.7
Tyson Alualu
DT
2.4
The Packers have built an entire franchise mythology around retaining their own players, and don't bring in outside help very often. Former Packers GM Ron Wolf explains:
"In the long run," Wolf said, "it's better to keep your own players. So I guess you could say that, in my opinion, it's better to build through the draft. When I was here [in Green Bay], I used trades and the waiver wire quite a bit. Once we kind of got it settled, we did everything in our power to keep our own."
The Bengals and Steelers are two other teams, along with the Cowboys, who seem to have embraced the idea of building through the draft, perhaps not as rigorously as the Packers, but they have drafted well enough to not have to go to the free agent market for help.
The Cowboys of the last few years are a team that values retaining its own draft picks, and re-signed a small armada of former draft picks to second contracts.
When you succeed in drafting talent, you can focus on re-signing your own talent and you can then use free agency to improve the depth across your roster. By sheer force of numbers, the draft remains the main source of new (and cheap!) player material. Get it right in the draft and you are golden. Get it wrong and you may struggle to compensate through other means.
Other teams I looked at and the number of free agent acquisitions among their top 15 cap hits:
Houston: 5
LA Rams: 5
Baltimore: 6
Seattle: 6
Carolina: 6
Minnesota: 8
Cleveland: 8
Arizona: 9
Oakland: 11
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