State of the Salary Cap: Cowboys' in position to defy tradition, splurge in 2025

[shabazz]

Lol. Already looking towards next year.

When I saw the final roster after being the team LEAST involved in free agency, I was already looking forward to 2025.....Jerry is too

 

[fivetwos]

The article outlines what they could do, not what they will do. The Cowboys pay their own players, they rarely make trades for high paid players, or entertain high paid FAs. So what would they spend all of that cap space on?

They knew they'd have a decent amount of cap space going into 2025. This is why Dak's cap hit is 90M. They're trying to absorb as much of his cap hits while they can. If they wanted an extra 30M, they could have just switch 2025 with 2026, instant 30M without any restructures.

They don't intend to create more cap space. They intend to just have enough to sign their own players, a few bargain free agents, and drafted players.

There are times when your truth causes me pain.

 

[john van brocklin]

This is a great article about the Cowboys salary cap situation. Where they are now, in 2025, 2025 restructures, 2025 needs, and the Parsons situation. I highly encourage everyone to take a couple of minutes and completely read it. There is lots of good information and is very informative.

State of the Salary Cap: Cowboys' in position to defy tradition, splurge in 2025
K.D. Drummond
September 18, 2024

It’s a horrible feeling to wake up in Week 3 and think that the team one has dedicated their sports life to is dead in the water already. Make no mistake; the Cowboys are better than what they displayed on Sunday in their 44-19 bludgeoning at the hands of the New Orleans Saints.

The club has a new defensive coordinator and system, one that’s notoriously hard to learn. The stars didn’t play in the preseason whatsoever on either side of the ball, and they were missing one of their only two proven passing game weapons and the fill-ins hurt them on numerous occasions. But those excuses do nothing to assuage the feelings that this team has to have perfect circumstances to emerge victorious at the end of the season, and perfect doesn’t happen around here.

So even with the NFC East looking extremely winnable, and teams from San Francisco and Detroit looking within reach, the more than likely outcome is that Dallas will be spinning things forward in 2025 instead of looking to run things back. Fortunately, the salary cap outlook for such a thing is actually pretty promising in that regard. Unfortunately, it’s just not the team’s track record.

MUCH MORE: https://cowboyswire.usatoday.com/20...4-2025/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Slurge in free agency?
What does that even look like?
Sounds like an oxymoron given this teams cheap ways in free agency.
Oh, I know !
It's ALL IN!!!!!

 

[coult44]

Zack Martin, DeMarcus Lawrence, Osa Odighizuwa and Jourdan Lewis are the most likely contenders to be brought back from their pending free agents.

Even Stephen can figure out in a foreseeable budget, room for more than just a smile, but a top gang changer. Plenty of draft picks with merit for trade.

You didn’t write the article but you are trying to spread the same message. The message that Jerry and Stevie will go on a FA run and bring in some big time acquisitions. They won’t! They don’t do that. They would rather tell you they signed their players like Dak, Ceedee, and Micah, and that the other guys have to step up.

 

[805BoysInBlue]

Have you seen the free agent class for next year? Amari Cooper, Cooks, Martin, Lawrence and Trey Lance are some of the best available smh.

 

[AmericasTeam81]

*KD Drummond*

 

[Jarntt]

This! From the article

“This gives Dallas the ability to swing trades for high-priced players who become available, More than likely though, this will only be used for injury replacements as the team signs guys off the street when necessary.”

 

[gimmesix]

Maybe they will finally get it through their heads that you can’t put together enough good players at any one time through the draft only.

Yeah, you build that way initially then supplement the picks you blew, not quadruple down on them and hope.

They honestly operate as if they will never bust a draft pick again.

Only way I could see that happening is if they hire Belichick as coach. New England wasn't a big spender in free agency when he was there but it did go get some pieces for him during their Super Bowl run. I think Belichick is one of the few coaches, like Parcells, that Jerry would actually listen to instead of dictating our FA philosophy.

 

[fivetwos]

Only way I could see that happening is if they hire Belichick as coach. New England wasn't a big spender in free agency when he was there but it did go get some pieces for him during their Super Bowl run. I think Belichick is one of the few coaches, like Parcells, that Jerry would actually listen to instead of dictating our FA philosophy.

I can see that yeah, but I still can’t at all see the guy who went out of his way to disclose nothing puts up with Jerry and his mouth. I just don’t.

 

[Asklesko]

Dallas splurging on free agents? I won't hold my breath.

 

[gimmesix]

I can see that yeah, but I still can’t at all see the guy who went out of his way to disclose nothing puts up with Jerry and his mouth. I just don’t.

I don't either. But others have commented on the two having a good relationship.

"They're actually close. They're good friends. They really like and respect each other," former Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett said on NBC's "Football Night in America" on Sunday night, as shared on the X platform by WEEI's Mike Kadlick. "But the working relationship? It'll be interesting."

Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer noted that Belichick has worked at making sure he's in good standing with Jones.

"Bill Belichick has, quietly in recent years, through doing football business and attending owners meetings, built a very solid relationship with both Jerry and Stephen Jones," Breer wrote on the X platform. "Things might be getting pretty interesting here."

https://nesn.com/2024/01/bill-belic...-with-jerry-jones-could-open-door-to-cowboys/

Darren Rovell relayed a story of how Belichick ran into Jones at a ski resort after the Cleveland Browns fired Belichick in 1996. Belichick had a message then for Jones.

"I can coach," Belichick told Jones, per Rovell. "If you ever get an opportunity, don't forget about me."

Of course, that was way back before the Joneses became FA spend thrifts. Most coaches would have liked to have come here in the 1990s. But imagine if we had hired Belichick back then instead of Chan Gailey. Might not have made a difference, though, unless Belichick could have convinced him to take the draft more seriously back then instead of thinking he could buy another title.

 

[big dog cowboy]

You didn’t write the article but you are trying to spread the same message.

Where?

 

[big dog cowboy]

Dallas splurging on free agents? I won't hold my breath.

Kind of what I was thinking.

 

[Creeper]

I would tend to agree. I'm hopeful they'll hit the market a little harder than they did this year, but I wouldnt expect anything significant. Honestly when you look at who they are set to lose this offseason the most likely scenario is going to be them breaking even at best with 2-3 third wave FAs. It'll be another year of having to overhype the draft class to convince ourselves this roster is more talented than the prior year, unless Jerry/Stephen actually change their philosophy on team building which seems unlikely.

I thought they would do that this year considering the way the season ended and how obvious their needs were. But instead they did less than usual. Now we are seeing the same problems again this year, only worse.

 

[Coogiguy03]

Slurge in free agency?
What does that even look like?
Sounds like an oxymoron given this teams cheap ways in free agency.
Oh, I know !
It's ALL IN!!!!!

it'll be the same mess we've been going through except we'll have some money to spend which we won't! If we do spend, it'll be just to get players to make us fans happy, but really did they evaluate carefully is my question

 

[Coogiguy03]

I thought they would do that this year considering the way the season ended and how obvious their needs were. But instead they did less than usual. Now we are seeing the same problems again this year, only worse.

things will get better "they need time to gel and get better!"

 

[Coogiguy03]

Kind of what I was thinking.

 

[Jarntt]

This team has proven to be completely inept with regards to the Cap. Cap space wasn't an issue this year and had nothing to with why we didn't sign any players that weren't from the bargain basement bin. The team easily could have cleared over $30M in cap space even without restructuring Dak. What's worse is they eventually extended him any way and now have $26M in cap space sitting there after they told us what a big problem we had. The team wasn't forced to do nothing because off the cap, they chose to do nothing due to apathy or incompetence. On top of this, year 1 of free agent contracts are very very low cap hits. For example, the Eagles signed Huff to a 3 year $51M contract and his first year cap hit was $4.4M. Christian Wilkins signed a 4 year $110M contract and his first year cap hit was $10.3M. Chris Jones signed a 5 year $159M contract and his first year cap hit is $7.4M. Heck, CeeDee's cap hit this year is only $8.8M. I'm not suggesting they should have signed the above players or that the players would have even come here, just showing the math. Don't believe anything you hear from these dopes about how they spend money because as the article points out they just lie. They choose to ignore one of the most important parts of the player acquisition processes available to NFL teams this year and almost every year for the past decade.

 

[JoeKing]

The salary of a QB needs to be limited to a predetermined % of the team salary cap and perhaps not even subject to the team salary cap.

 

[Coogiguy03]

The salary of a QB needs to be limited to a predetermined % of the team salary cap and perhaps not even subject to the team salary cap.

One of the Cowboys radio shows were talking about this last week, about possibly having a separate cap for QB's only, or something like a max contract for the NBA or as to where it doesn't affect what you do with the rest of the cap. It has to be worked out by the players association soon, like at what point will a QB finally make 100 million a season if they don't get a hold on it