The Dallas Cowboys are going to have to work diligently to replace the on-field presence of Travis Frederick, who on Monday retired from the game of football. When Frederick missed time in 2018, Joe Looney filled in admirably. He wasn’t on par with Frederick’s ability to direct the offensive line, but he held up relatively well as an actual blocker. When Frederick returned, he did not play at the same level he did before injury, but his calming presence did help.
Looney was re-signed this offseason to a one-year deal, as was ERFA Adam Redmond, and the Cowboys drafted Penn State’s Conner McGovern in the third round in 2019. The three will likely compete for the starting position this offseason, whenever football activities resume. From a purely business perspective, Frederick’s retirement has an impact as well.
Things could go in multiple directions, and the key is when paperwork gets filed to the league.
The Cowboys will likely have zero issue getting Frederick to officially file his paperwork when best works for them. Here’s a look at Frederick’s salary breakdown, courtesy of Over The Cap.
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If Frederick were to file his retirement papers immediately, the Cowboys would get $935,000 in additional space on the 2020 cap.
That’s because Frederick’s 2020 base salary of $7 million will disappear from the books, as well as the base salaries for 2021, 2022 and 2023 from future projections.
His prorated bonus amounts that are on the cap for the year 2020 will still be on the books, as that is money he was already paid.
However the restructure bonuses Frederick received in 2017 and 2018 were spread evenly across five seasons each. The first restructure added $2.585 million per year through 2021 and the second restructure added $1.74 million per year through 2022.
That money, $6.065 million in total, will accelarate to this year’s cap if the papers are submitted to the league in the near future. That cancels out the majority of the savings from his 2020 base salary going away.
However, there is a loop hole.
If Frederick waits until after June 1 to file his papers, that $6.065 million won’t hit the 2020 cap. Instead, the dead money will go onto the 2021 ledger, where it will take up a smaller percentage of that year’s cap (because of a higher ceiling).
That would mean the Cowboys have an extra $7 million of cap space to work with this offseason.
The tradeoff is that Dallas would not be able to see the base salary disappear until that point; but it’s not all bad.
Teams generally like to take between $3 million and $5 million in cap space into the regular season. In addition, the Cowboys will need a little over $3 million to sign their rookie class.
Frederick’s pending retirement will give them the cap space to do those things, meaning they can spend the entirety of their remaining cap space on free agents now, knowing they will get that bump in order to pay for the other things later. Even Frederick waits to file his paperwork, the Cowboys can functionally reap the financial benefits now, while free agency is still going on.
Of course, there’s the elephant in the room that the Cowboys are going to have to figure out how to replace Frederick’s presence in the locker room and on the field, and that has nothing to do with money.
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