The Dallas Cowboys are in a precarious position when it comes to their 2021 cap space and draft haul, and the two work hand in hand. Due to COVID-19 taking away fan attendance in most venues for much or all of the season, the NFL isn’t reaping the revenue that they originally forecasted for the season. While TV numbers are down across all sports, TV numbers are down across all shows, too, and the NFL continues to reign supreme when it comes to live viewing.
Still, there’s going to be a major dip in the 2021 salary cap, as that is based on a percentage of league revenue. The league agreed to cap the falling cap at $175 million for 2021. Any worse than that, and they’ll start taking cap space away from subsequent seasons. Before COVID-19, the projections were at around $215 million for next year’s cap.
That matters, because teams signed players to long-term deals in 2017, 2018 and 2019 with those ceilings in mind. The Cowboys played the Dak Prescott situation with those ceilings in mind, and now that he’s almost destined to be on a second consecutive franchise tag, thoe team’s head is bumping into that lowered ceiling.
According to the NFLPA, the Cowboys currently have $23.2 million of cap space available for 2020, third-highest in the league. Over the Cap is a little above that as they project different things, at $24.2 million.
This was before Griffen’s trade, which will remove $3.2 million from the 2020 books.
The Cowboys have 42 players under contract for 2021, and a current cap number of $177.7 million when figuring in those players and the dead money from Travis Frederick and Gerald McCoy’s contracts.
Using OTC’s numbers, Dallas stands to have around $27.5 million roll over to 2021 in unused cap space (pending any additional deals and end-of-season calculations for likely and not-likely-to-be-earned bonuses).
Adding that $27.5 million to the lower $175 million cap projection, and Dallas would have $202.5 million in space in the worst-case scenario.
Take away the $177.7 million they have on the books and that means Dallas has around $24.8 million to spend.
Dallas of course will sign at least 9 players to get to the 51-man offseason number, and after that’s all said and done, and even if they are all base-salary-no-bonus signees, that will eat up $6.5 million of space.
Dallas has around $18.3 million to spend.
But again, Dallas is going to have to tag Prescott. That will eat up $36.9 million in 2021 cap space. Dallas still has to find another $18.6 million in space prior to the start of the league year.
That can be accomplished in a multitude of ways, but it isn’t pretty. The team may be able to jettison some salary prior to next week’s trade deadline (November 3). There are a handful of players who could be released in the offseason for savings, but most of it will come from restructuring deals on their highest-paid players.
With those efforts, Dallas will likely be able to create enough room to tag Prescott again. Without a long-term agreement though, there will not be much room to re-sign some of their own players who are free agents.
If the Cowboys have any plans to re-sign CBs Chidobe Awuzie or Jourdan Lewis, DE Aldon Smith or safety Xavier Woods, they may have to make other moves to make that happen. If they plan to add other outside talent, they will definitely need to make other moves.
That’s why getting draft picks for players on expiring contracts may not be done with getting rid of Griffen.
The Cowboys are going to have a lot of holes to fill on their roster, and not a lot of cap space. They may need to increase their draft haul. Not all players may stick, but using picks in draft-weekend trades to move up (like what they did to acquire Tyler Biadasz) may be the only way the team is able to get a handful of ready-for-action players. 10 picks (their current haul) may not be enough.
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