The Cowboys began preparation for the new league year in earnest on Friday, executing a conversion trigger on the final year of Zack Martin’s contract. The nine-time All-Pro (seven times First-Team) will still make his $18 million in base salary for 2024, but Dallas pushed $13 million into future years salary cap to create just enough room to be compliant before Wednesday’s 4pm eastern deadline.
Dallas now has just under $2 million of cap space. Clearly, even if they intend to do their every-season-since-2012 bargain shopping, they’ll need to create a bunch of more room. Fortunately, there’s an easy path to do this. Several NFL teams have been busy releasing players over the last week, but Dallas has not yet. The takeaway is that they are carefully weighing out the pros and cons of what they’ll need to do. Dallas more than likely has planned out their free agency wishlist and could wait to trigger their cap saving moves until they have an agreement with a target in place. That’s a conversation that starts with Dak Prescott, but hardly ends there.
Here’s a look at a series of moves available to them once they start to have in-depth conversations when the legal tampering window opens on Monday.
The elephant in the room is that there are six ways the Cowboys can approach the Dak Prescott contract situation. When first posted over a month ago, not many people believed the Lame Duck and Drew Brees Extension options were realistic, but recent reports from folks like Rich Eisen and Jane Slater say those are actually strong possibilities.
The Cowboys aren’t beholden to anything here, though clearly a long-term agreement with Prescott would be the best way to create the most additional cap space. Remember though, Dak Prescott currently has two void years on his deal and like what they did with Zack Martin, they likely have language built in to add one or two more void years.
That would allow them to convert Prescott’s salary into a restructure bonus and save (in cap space) anywhere between two-thirds to fourth-fifths on whatever amount they push off.
Not only do they have this option, they can literally go back to the well whenever they want. Have a player they need $10 million in space for? Restructure $12.5 million after adding two void years and you’re set.
Need another $10 million? Do it again, while still having the ability to create another $2 million in space later if necessary.
There’s no limit to the amount of times a team can restructure a player, aside from getting his base salary down to the veteran minimum, which for Prescott is $1.21 million. If Dallas was willing to put $27.8 million on future caps that could all accelerate in 2025, where Prescott already is on the books for $36.4 million in dead money, they could. That $64 million would be behind Russell Wilson’s mind-numbing, record-breaking dead money total of $85 million to escape Denver, possibly creating the new norm in the NFL.
At the time of last month’s scouting combine, word emerged that Dallas had yet to enter into negotiations with CeeDee Lamb’s representatives. Lamb continued to ascend into the highest stratosphere of NFL wide receivers, finishing in the top-five for Offensive Player of the Year in 2023. He’s set to play on the fifth-year option, which is $17.99 million.
Dallas cannot use void years as the deal is currently constituted, so they’ll need to figure out something if they want to reduce his cap hit in 2024.
The lowest Dallas can drop Lamb’s base salary to is $1.125 million, but any deal is likely to be around and possibly surpass Tyreek Hill’s $30 million annual salary.
Hill’s signing bonus was $25.5 million.
A likely Lamb extension is probably four years, $124 million with a $27.5 million signing bonus, along with two void years to account for bonus proration to keep the hit low the first two seasons.
That would mean a first-year cap hit of around $6.625 million, which would save over $11 million in cap space for 2024.
This one is really simple. Diggs signed an extension that has five years remaining. There’s no need to add void years, they simply pull the trigger and reduce his $11 million base salary as low as they need to.
The minimum base salary is $1.125 million, so Dallas can spread just under $10 million across five years at $2 million each, saving just under $8 million as a maximum.
The Wolf Hunter is dealing with an unfortunate injury that threatens his career. In the final year of a two-season deal, Vander Esch is set to make $3 million in base salary and another $147k in roster bonuses.
$1 million of his base salary is guaranteed, meaning a release or retirement puts just over $2 million back into Dallas’ cap space.
It felt like a premature deal at the time, but Steele was given an extra two years wrapped in a five-year extension. His 2024 base salary is just $7.25 million, so restructuring doesn’t put a ton of money into future years.
$6.125 million can be spread across five seasons, bringing his base down to $1.125 million and adding back $1.225 million in prorated bonus.
$2.35 million cap hit for 2024 means just under $5 million in cap savings.
Lawrence’s situation could go multiple ways. He’s in the final year of his extension and is still playing at a high level. A release would save around $2.4 million. There’s currently one void year so a simple restructure could save around $4.4 million.
If the club wants to add three more void years without an extension, the team could save around $7 million in cap space, and that would move his 2025 dead money from where it already stands, $7.45 million, up to over $14 million.
Dallas probably lets this one sit, but it’s there.
Wilson’s $5.5 million base salary is guaranteed. If he were to be traded, Dallas would save $2.4 million off the cap. If he were to be restructured down to the league minimum of $1.125 million, the prorated bonus hit would be $875,000 for a total reduction of $3.5 million.
- Dak Prescott extension: $27.8 million
- CeeDee Lamb extension: $11.3 million
- Trevon Diggs conversion: $8 million
- Leighton Vander Esch retire/release: $2.15 million
- Terence Steele conversion: $5 million
- DeMarcus Lawrence restructure: $7 million
- Donovan Wilson conversion: $3.5 million