You have it backwards. Cash is more important than the accounting tricks used to manipulate the cap.
Cash spent is what was literally spent on the roster. How you account for that cash spent on the cap is simply numbers moving, etc.
Yes, I understand that. But my point is that the CAP is a reflection of money paid to players. Over 10 years, as this article claims to cover, the money spent per year, should be close to the CAP level spending for the team in question. The process does not create or destroy spending. If you are up against the CAP every year then you are spending the maximum allowed over time.
So, as I posted, we know Jerry has overpaid some players on his team in the past. Zeke, Dak, Michael Gallup etc. Where he has not spent $ is on tier 1 free agents. And yet, going into this year the Cowboys were sitting with very little money against the CAP. Dak's $59 million CAP number was not the result of Dak getting $59 million this year. It was from the money Jerry gave Dak up front back in 2021. Now they have about $28 million in CAP room which I am sure Jerry would like to carry over so he can afford to pay Dak, CeeDee and Micah in 2025. And on that point, when or if, Jerry extends Dak, CeeDee and Micah he will undoubtedly pay them huge bonuses up front which will be reflected in the cash spend for that year he pays them, probably 2025, while minimizing their CAP impact. It will look like Jerry outspent most other NFL teams, maybe all, without having spent a nickel on free agency.
Regardless, the issue is not that Jerry does not pay his own players. He has shown a willingness to overpay some of his own players at the expense of others. The lone exception may have been Amari Cooper. He could have restructured Cooper's deal to free CAP space but he chose instead to trade him for a 5th round pick.