Now that the Dallas Cowboys have settled on a new head coach in Brian Schottenheimer, the attention has turned to filling out his coaching staff. But after that is completed, the process of finding veteran solutions to their roster deficiencies becomes front and center.
The 2025 NFL salary cap hasn’t been announced yet, that will come in the first week of March. But the league has alerted its 32 teams the cap should come in between $270 million and $275 million. Working with the median of that range ($272.5 million), Dallas enters the offseason slightly over the cap, but with ways to get way under.
According to the NFLPA, Dallas is carrying over $18.5 million of unused 2024 cap space that rolls over into 2025, and it’s needed because the Cowboys have $296 million in contract commitments, according to Over The Cap.
Here’s a look at how the Cowboys can create the necessary cap space to re-sign their players, and what they likely won’t do in order to create room and sign some external free agents.
2025 Restructures that will create more space
Dak Prescott’s deal calls for a 2025 base salary of $47.75 million. He’ll get that cash, but there’s an obvious reason why his four-year extension included another four void years that run through 2032. The Cowboys are going to pull the restructure lever and kick the majority of his base salary down the road in five-year installments.
To keep the accounting neat, we’ll assume they drop his base salary down to $2.75 million for 2025, and turn $45 million into a restructure bonus. That’s allocated across each year, from 2025 through 2029, at $9 million per.
Now his 2025 cap hit plummets from $89.9 million to $53.9 million, shaving $36 million in space.
CeeDee Lamb’s deal is similar. Pare his $26.85 million base salary down to $1.85 million and spread that $25 million across five years, shaving $20 million off the 2025 cap.
Together that’s another $56 million in space.
Micah Parsons
Fans concerned that the club still needs to sign Micah Parsons to a record-setting extension shouldn’t be. He’s going to get his money, and it’s actually going to help the 2025 cap situation.
That’s because Parsons is already on the books for his fifth-year option salary at $21 million, when his extension hits, his 2025 cap hit will likely drop to $10 million or below, freeing up another $11 million worth of cap space for a total of $67 million.
Questionable moves
Those are the easy ones. Dallas doesn’t have to restructure Prescott’s or Lamb’s deal all at once. Those can be done as necessary to clear space to make acquisitions, piece by piece. Parsons’ extension won’t be rushed, as witnessed by the drawn-out process for the two deals from last summer.
And, Dallas could create more room if the want, but these are more questionable.
Moving cap hit from the current year to future years makes sense; $20 million takes up a higher percentage of cap space in 2025 than it would in future seasons with higher caps. It’s a bang-for-the-buck thing.
But that only works when the player is likely to see those future years. Players who are on the decline, or with serious injuries aren’t wise restructures.
In that vein, there’s another __ million of space Dallas could reap.
Right tackle Terence Steele struggled for much of 2024, though he improvd down the stretch. But if Dallas doesn’t see him as their long-term right tackle, then it wouldn’t be wise to restructure him, though it could shave $9 million off the cap.
Trevon Diggs suffered a significant knee injury towards the end of the season, and has missed the majority of the last two seasons after signing a huge deal in 2023. Restructuring him could add $6 million of space.
That’s another $15 million, without even adding void years to either deal, for a total of $82 million.
There’s also the potential that some players are released, which could reap even more savings, but those wouldn’t have to be motivated by the need to add space, rather not seeing those players as worth the expense.
