If the Transformers have taught us anything, it’s that some things are more than meets the eye. Sometimes the most confident looking person in the room is really the most insecure. Sometimes the coolest shoes on the rack are really the poorest constructed item in the store. And sometimes the richest looking person on the block, is just as cash-strapped as everyone else.
The Cowboys are the highest appraised sports franchise in all of professional sports. Jerry Jones has taken America’s Team and turned it into a juggernaut of cash flow and financial growth that would make any market leader envious. Yet, it seems as if the Cowboys are broke. No team has spent less in new money than the Cowboys in 2024 and it’s been causing an uproar across Cowboys Nation.
At a time when contending teams from coast to coast are spending with seemingly reckless abandon, Dallas has been counting pennies, clipping coupons and generally resting on their laurels all offseason long.
Being inactive in free agency is nothing new for the Cowboys. They’ve often sat out the costliest portion of the year, preferring to bargain hunt in aftermath instead. They justified their inaction each year by pointing to their homegrown superstars and the exorbitant costs associated with retaining them.
Yet in the same breath they’ve watched multiple homegrown superstars walk out the building, unincumbered, without any meaningful counteroffer from the home team. They entered 2024 with three players on their immediate to-do list. Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb were upcoming free agents and Micah Parsons wasn’t far behind them. Surely their year-after-year frugality would pay off with stress-free and drama-free retainment, right? Right? Cue the Star Wars Padme meme…
Not only have the Cowboys NOT re-signed Prescott, Lamb or Parsons, but they also declined upgrades in free agency and at the coaching ranks this offseason. They’ve done everything a cash poor team would do in an offseason.
It’s not uncommon for highly successful corporations and extremely wealthy individuals to be low in liquidity. Having money on hand can be costly. It makes much more sense to keep things invested. Speculation as to how liquid the Cowboys really are this season has run rampant over the offseason. The front office’s inactions have been so extreme it’s hard to think of any other logical explanation.
In 2024 they sit at ~$183M in cash obligations, with a CeeDee Lamb extension likely to increase that by $7-10M depending on the signing bonus.
This is why even a $12M commitment to Tyron was too much, and why they are prioritizing CeeDee over Dak's contract.
— Joey Ickes (@JoeyIckes) March 22, 2024
Even the handling of the coaching staff has been done in the most cost-conscious way possible. Firing the staff and starting over would prove costly because it would require Dallas to pay out the contracts to Mike McCarthy and staff, all while paying new money on new contracts to replacement coaches. Extending the contracts would also be costly because it would require new money and a long-term commitment. Doing nothing and letting the entire coaching staff exist in a lame duck status is the most inexpensive way to handle things.
With Prescott, Lamb and Parsons all seeking new top-of-the-market money, the Cowboys are looking at annual expenditures of more than $120 million for these three alone.
This isn’t chump change. Signing bonuses, payroll and all the standard operating costs of an NFL team adds up to an obscene amount of money. Not many teams, corporations or billionaires have that kind of money laying around, yet most find ways of freeing up cash when they need it. It’s safe to say the Cowboys need it.
Maybe the Cowboys are playing things exactly how they want to and not how they have to. Maybe they have all the money they need ready and waiting. It just sure seems like money has been the driving force in their decision making this offseason. It’s understandable but it doesn’t fit the profile of a team dedicated to winning.
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