It’s pretty wild to see some of the roster-related takes on Twitter and across the internet on Thursday, at least when it comes to the Dallas Cowboys. A lot of websites have pointed out the fact that the Cowboys are the proud owners of an additional $10 million of cap space after the calendar turned the page to June 2. Right tackle La’el Collins was released early in the spring and has since signed with the Cincinnati Bengals, but the Cowboys designated their former starter as a June-1 release.
What that means is that while Collins was free to pursue a new landing spot, the Cowboys weren’t free to spend the cap savings. The release allowed Dallas to avoid absorbing accelerated cap hits for the future years of Collins’ deal going away. Because of league accounting rules, the extra cap space wasn’t available to Dallas until Thursday. So now that it’s free, some outlets are reporting the Cowboys can now make some additional free agent moves. The only problem? Nothing was stopping Dallas before Thursday and the extra cap room isn’t going to persuade them one bit.
Here’s why.
The Cowboys entered the month with over $13 million of cap space, and they knew since March the additional $10 million was coming. Their draft picks are all signed save for fourth-round tight end Jake Ferguson. Following the draft, the compensatory pick window closed, which means any player they sign will not impact the three additional picks they expect to get in 2023.
In other words, there’s been no reason at all for the Cowboys to not have signed anyone yet. They weren’t waiting on more space.
That isn’t to say Dallas won’t sign any additional players, it just needs to be cleared up that finally getting the cap space attached to the release of Collins isn’t the big deal some are making it out to be.
It’s been pretty clear all of the moves Dallas made to create cap space, from Collins to Amari Cooper, is earmarked for the 2023 season.
The only thing of significance for the Cowboys surrounding June 2 is if another NFL club waited and didn’t designate a player as a June 1 release. Only the Bears and the Raiders released the maximum two designated players, which means they theoretically could have had more players they wanted to release but had to wait until the actual date to split the cap hit.
When a player is released, any unamortized signing bonus (spread over up to five seasons, the hit from seasons not yet played) accelerates into the current year’s cap. After June 1, that acceleration falls onto the next year’s cap.
So a player released now will return all non-guaranteed base salary to the team’s cap, and the future signing bonus hits all land on the 2023 ledger.
But again, only two teams used both of their slots this season. The other 30 teams weren’t likely holding back any of those players. Perhaps a few teams wanted to see how the draft fell in terms of replacing veterans, but whomever the Cowboys are targeting has likely been on the free agent market for a while and Dallas has had the cap space to bring them aboard.
They just haven’t.
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