The Cowboys are $54M over the cap?

[jazzcat22]

It is being cheap. They are cheap with their staff and they are cheap with actual cash spending on players.

They use the cap to claim poverty.

Wrong on all of this. Another fan myth. They are cheap as to bringing in FA players. But have reasons in their own world.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

Every other team can do the same, so it’s all relative. Some teams start out preparing for the 2026 season better, financially, than the Cowboys. The advantage is real.

of curse you want to be below. but it also means that you may not have good players on the team. there are exceptions, where a team drafts well one or two years in a row and is below cap significantly. if nothing else, the cap era has put tremendous pressure on teams to draft well, because you get a good player on the cheap for 4,5 years.

but my point was that we can easily create cap room. this past year, 4 contracts and we had 65M of cap space, with Dak's contract untouched.

 

[CowboysFaninHouston]

I think dumping Steele frees another 15 mil on top of that

I think its only 4M in saving, but I could be wrong. there is a 9.3M dead cap hit. his salary is 13.5

 

[KingCorcoran]

of curse you want to be below. but it also means that you may not have good players on the team. there are exceptions, where a team drafts well one or two years in a row and is below cap significantly. if nothing else, the cap era has put tremendous pressure on teams to draft well, because you get a good player on the cheap for 4,5 years.

but my point was that we can easily create cap room. this past year, 4 contracts and we had 65M of cap space, with Dak's contract untouched.

Agreed. Cowboys can create plenty of cap space. Hopefully Jerry won’t shy away from needed roster improvements claiming cap issues.

 

[big dog cowboy]

how much are we rolling over

Google!

 

[big dog cowboy]

Did I miss something???????

Yes. A lot.

 

[CWR]

Did I miss something??????? What happened to the savings from NOT signing Micah????







https://nfltraderumors.co/nfl-cap-space-1/

Yes you did miss something brother.

The first and most important thing being this is static and the cap is dynamic.

The numbers in a screenshot are fairly worthless at this point.

They dont account for who needs to be signed, savings from cap casualties, or other levers such as restructuring, and using void years.

In fact I think if you had to pick a single thing to look at in regards to cap health it may be void year money spent. Even that is difficult to gage because it really depends on if the player is producing to the cost and if you plan to keep them around, and possibly extend them out.

The entirety of cap health has so many different layers and wrinkles to it, its difficult for any of us to understand exactly where the team stands. One thing I know for certain is we can ALWAYS push money forward. Until I see Philly pay the piper for their 400 million ish in void year money spent I refuse to believe in any type of "hard cap."

 

[Robbieac]

So already back to calling other people haters? 48 hours after becoming a quitter and a week or so after hating all Cowboys that are not named Dak (to reference two threads you started)? Never learn will you.

Rockport quit again? I must have missed it. Where’s the post?

 

[TNCowboy]

$18M in deferred dead $ on players no longer here, mostly Zack Martin. Hard to believe those idiots gave him additional $, knowing he was 32 and in a downhill slide.

Steele, Diggs, Clark, Hooker, Wilson on the chopping block come March, though I'd assume they'll try to bring Clark back on a cheaper deal.

Just terrible cap management. They can defer/restructure Dak, but adding to that disaster of a contract just makes things a little worse down the road.

Leaving Prescott, Lamb, and Quinnen Williams aside, every other player on a big contract is playing way beneath his salary. Dumpster fire front office.

 

[Kwyn]

We will see a bunch of restructures to free up that CAP space. Hopefully not Dak though. His CAP number next year is about $74 million. But he is also getting older. I would not push more of his contract out into voidable year if I could avoid it. Keep in mind the 2026 CAP numbers do not include Pickens on a franchise tag but that would be another $28 million.

Still, they can get everyone under the CAP but I don't see them signing any big contracts again next year. BTW, they will have $16 million in dead money from Zack Martin's contract. This is why pushing bonus into voidable years is a bad idea. It just puts the problem in a different year but it is still a problem.

If they restructure only one person, it’s going to be Dak.

 

[Coogiguy03]

Yes. A lot.

STOP you meant this for me!!!

 

[MyFairLady]

No worries guys. Steve will get us back under and we will go 8-8-1 without breaking a sweat.

 

[Swagger]

$18M in deferred dead $ on players no longer here, mostly Zack Martin. Hard to believe those idiots gave him additional $, knowing he was 32 and in a downhill slide.

Steele, Diggs, Clark, Hooker, Wilson on the chopping block come March, though I'd assume they'll try to bring Clark back on a cheaper deal.

Just terrible cap management. They can defer/restructure Dak, but adding to that disaster of a contract just makes things a little worse down the road.

Leaving Prescott, Lamb, and Quinnen Williams aside, every other player on a big contract is playing way beneath his salary. Dumpster fire front office.

Quite. By restructuring Dak it will only make the situation worse longer term as they will be stuck with him.

 

[Creeper]

If they restructure only one person, it’s going to be Dak.

I know. He is due $40 million in salary which is guaranteed and no doubt they will restructure that into bonus to lower his CAP about $20 million. I am saying I wouldn't if I was Jerry and there was a way around it. The Eagles do this because they have a chance to contend for a Super Bowl over the next few years. The Cowboys are not in that position and I honestly don't think they will be before Dak is too old.

 

[blueblood70]

Jerry is in the top 119 richest people in the world.

It doesn't matter what Jerry's worth on the outside of the league in the league there's a cap and in the league it doesn't matter what you're worth because it matters what you're willing to spend on your team what I'm telling you though even in the NFL how is that possible he's 7th in the NFL in net worth that means there's six owners worth more than him and the owner for the Denver Broncos has more money than half of the owners put together.

but how does that help it doesn't that's why there's a salary cap.

There were salary cap designed because you didn't want this a lot of owners are all around the same now except for in Denver They're all worth about the same so I don't care about the media in the market ING the salary cap that might be it might be time.....

Circumventing the cap they got around the design and the reason they started the cap and now if you can get around the cap that easy I think it's time for them to at least consider changing the hard cap to something else..


they should not worry about parity.. Seems to work in baseball...

 

[blueblood70]

Actually, that's not it,

maybe it was the fact that we have Kenny Clark that is going to end up costing 20 million next year they need to restructure that, they signed OSA, and Ferguson, and Bland, and others..

I might not be remembering all the new restructures, oh and that's right the big trade for Quinn Williams and Logan Wilson ,those took a hit ,

Yup those are all the players that we have instead of Parsons, mainly the interior defensive line, but it freed up money to sign deals ahead of time instead of waiting to the last minute.

This is really stupid, like I'm really tired of this actually it it's not Prescott,

prescott already got paid and restructured, before Parsons left,

and by the way Parsons leaving had nothing to do with money,

apparently we like to only use that narrative when it suits a fan or a media that want to take a pot shot at Prescott or Jerry..

no, The side of that team that forced the trade kept moving to goal posts they kept wanting more money they wanted less years they wanted more guarantees and then they made a total donkey of themselves, and jerry actually had a line and let him go.

Truly, IT wasn't about money, even though they want to say it was about money, it was never really about the money, because if it was they would have traded him during the actual offseason, and got maybe a little more for him, it would have became a circus,

they intended on paying him in the same neighborhood as Myles Garrett even though he doesn't belong there Because right now he makes $5.5 million more than Garrett and he's not even close to the same talent ,even if you want to debate it ,I'm sorry one is actually elite, and the other is just great...

Again, this had nothing to do with money, Parsons and his agent pushed this beyond even Jerry's limits, and Jerry decided I'm not going to deal with this, it's not worth that kind of money, so now he's gone....

Yeah,

that extra money went to a whole lot of other players we keep missing and I already said that to this guy somehow you guys sit back and you're having like bouts of amnesia,

They signed a bunch of players early after Parsons left and made a big trade to a guy now making $20 million in the middle of our defense and we've been looking for for decades and we have three of those now right in the middle and that's the trade off and oh that's right the 1st round pick we still have to use on a player which maybe we don't know Will he become elite will he be the replacement for Parsons.

stay tuned... because we still get to draft a good player and they have the flexibility to decide on George Pickens and Javonte Williams and Brandon Aubrey don't listen to this stupid cat thing because it's not even accurate.

On an accurate 2026 cap estimate We wait until the NFL shows what the new cap number is going to be and all the moves the Cowboys will make they have to make because lots of guys won't be here next year june 1st cuts aged out they're going to get cut off this team that may even be traded We'll know the actual real number the Cowboys have to work with when it matters that would be march let's talk about this in march so we don't have to repeat ourselves over and over and over because this place becoming that kind of redundant because people feel they need to start these posts so early that they're not accurate and it won't matter teams all do this they will find a way that plenty of money to use in the offseason at hand..

 

[zrinkill]

I see the Jerry defenders are hard at work.

 

[CowboyoWales]

but my point was that we can easily create cap room. this past year, 4 contracts and we had 65M of cap space, with Dak's contract untouched.

But you have the luxury of looking at one year at a time. You need to look at the next COUPLE of years to get a true reflection we can do....especially if you're looking at elite/top FA's.
As @KingCorcoran correctly says, most any team can create the space.....BUT OUR PROBLEM IS THAT 2027 (we are already in deficit) and only $70m in 2028 (puts us in bottom 4 and that's with a roster of 18= a ton of JAG's)..
We like to blame Jerry for not signing the top FA's, but reality is that there are a number of teams that can give better contracts and spread it over the next couple of years and have less holes to dilute the CAP.

 

[CowboyoWales]

I know. He is due $40 million in salary which is guaranteed and no doubt they will restructure that into bonus to lower his CAP about $20 million. I am saying I wouldn't if I was Jerry and there was a way around it. The Eagles do this because they have a chance to contend for a Super Bowl over the next few years. The Cowboys are not in that position and I honestly don't think they will be before Dak is too old.

Yep, and Roseman will trade his big names and is prepared to take a 'Reset Year;. Interesting how quickly the Rams did in turning around the rebuild.

 

[Jarntt]

Did I miss something??????? What happened to the savings from NOT signing Micah????







https://nfltraderumors.co/nfl-cap-space-1/

I'm not sure exactly what he is using for the cap to come up with that number. Is he using the savings rolled from 2025? Is he using the expected cap increase? Spotrac does a much better job of laying everything out and showing the calculation. We are $36M over. As we all know that is a timing issue. If we, for example, had the same exact contracts as we currently do but structured them to totally backload them like let's say the Eagles do (they have two players with a base salary over $2M in 2026 and we have 14) we would have a ton of cap space already. We all know we could clear as much salary as we want so I don't understand why this keeps getting brought up. We do not have a salary cap issue.