Preferred Free Agent Signings
Dallas isn’t going to sign all of these players. They will likely sign most of these positions, but the names will almost certainly change. If a handful of these players end up in a Dallas uniform, that’s a win for these projections.
These are the players I would prefer Dallas to sign, for amounts I’d be comfortable with. There’s a bit of wiggle room there, of course.
Offense (5)
WR Breshad Perriman (if no Cooper) – 2 years, $14 million with $1M bonus, $7 million base in 2020
WR Randall Cobb – 2 years, $15 million with $7M bonus, $1 million base in 2020
TE Blake Jarwin (RFA) – 3 years, $21 million with $3.5M bonus, $1M/$7M/$9.5M
TE Tyler Eifert – 2 years, $5 million, with $1M bonus, $2M base in 2020
OL George Fant – 2 years, $7 million, with $2M bonus, $1.5M base in 2020
Defense (8)
DT Damon Harrison – 3 years, $21 million with $4M bonus, $5M/$6M/$6M
CB James Bradberry – 5 years, $78 million with $15M bonus, $1M/$8M/$15M/$19M/$20M
S Anthony Harris – 5 years, $70 million with $16M bonus, $4M/$6M/$11M/$15M/$18M
SS Eric Berry – 1 year, $2 million
S Kavon Frazier – 2 years, $3 million
CB Bashaud Breeland – 3 years, $14 million with $4M bonus, $1M/$3M/$6M
LB Sean Lee – 1 year, $4 million
LB Joe Thomas – 2 years, $5 million with $1M bonus, $1M base in 2020
Special Teams (3)
K Kai Forbath – 2 years, $2.5 million
P Marquette King – 1 year, $1 million
LS – LP Ladouceur – 1 year, $1 million
Total 2020 Cap Cost (16): $51.25 million
Prescott / Quinn 2020 Cap Hit: $22.6 million
In total, these moves add up to just under $74 million in new 2020 cap hit. For those doing the math at home, replacing Perriman with Cooper still allows the Cowboys to come in under the cap with the rest of the moves outlined here.
QB Dak Prescott
WR Amari Cooper/Brashad Perriman
WR Randall Cobb
CB James Bradberry
S Anthony Harris
DT Damon Harris
CB Bashaud Breeland
That makes a tremendous free agent class headliner group, and opens up the club to focus on best player available in the draft. Here’s the projected roster, not including the draft picks of course.
Players highlighted in green are already returning. Players in blue are return projections from this article. Players in orange are outside free agent additions, showing what Dallas could accomplish. Players in red are possible to be replaced by draft picks.
Adding all of the mentioned players including Cooper would place around $120 million on the 2021 cap, where Dallas currently has around $128 million in commitments and would be carrying over around $10 million from the 2020 leftover space.
This could likely lead to releasing a guy (or not signing in the first place) like Cobb and possibly a salary restructure or two depending on when the new TV and gambling money affected the cap. The cap has risen $10 million a year without those additions, so a $30 million jump isn’t out of the question for 2021, in my humble opinion.
The Cowboys have the cap space to sign all of their star free agents, at fair market value. They just won’t.
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