2023 NFL draft weekend has arrived. and the Dallas Cowboys are ready to elevate their roster. The enter the process with seven selections. Each team starts that year’s draft process with seven selections, but the Cowboys’ allotment went on a roller coaster trip before returning to the station.
Dallas first traded away their sixth-round pick to the Las Vegas Raiders for DT Johnathan Hankins. That was a midseason trade to help shore up the run defense. Following the season, the club was awarded three compensatory picks for free-agent defections in 2022, giving them nine in total. Soon after, WR Brandin Cooks and CB Stephon Gilmore were on their way and the pick count was back down to seven. And thanks to the CBA, those seven picks already have assigned salaries and cap implications.
Each player in the top several rounds will receive a signing bonus that is allocated across the four years of the rookie deal. In addition, because of the rule of the Top 51, the full amount of the cap hit isn’t just stacked on top of what the veterans are costing. The league minimum (or just above it) gets subtracted from each new player’s cap impact, because they essentially push a lower-paid player on the offseason 90-man roster out of the Top 51 calculation.
Dallas will need $2.7 million of cap space to pay their rookies in 2023; as it stands now. Here’s a look at the details, courtesy of Over The Cap.
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