They didn't do anything special with Hurts contract the difference between what they did with Hurts and what they did with Dak is that Dak's contract was signed after the franchise tag. Hurts still was on his rookie deal when he signed his contract so yes when you add his rookie deal to his 255 million dollar deal it looks more favorable. But the Cowboys did what everyone here wanted with that. They wanted Dak to "earn" his deal rather than sign him to a 35 million dollar deal......
But ultimately the contracts aren't that different.
Dak's cap hits have been 17 million, 19.7 million, 26 million......they haven't been 40 million a year or whatever the media has been feeding you.