Tag: cowboys salary cap

Cowboys pocket-watching VP says Eagles are headed for salary cap hell

Dallas Cowboys VP Stephen Jones says the Philadelphia Eagles are headed for salary cap hell and will have some tough decisions to make

The Cowboys and Eagles are franchises headed in different directions. While Dallas will look to retool, Philadelphia has retooled and looks like a Super Bowl contender.

Howie Roseman is a salary cap wizard, and his dominance over the rest of the NFC East has been glaring for some time. During a recent sitdown with 105.3 The Fan, Cowboys Vice President and son of Owner Jerry Jones, Stephen Jones, attempted to excuse his own incompetence by claiming that the Eagles will soon face salary cap struggles.

When asked about the difference between the two rosters following a 41-7 loss in Week 17, Jones mentioned that 50% of their cap space was on injured reserve.

A current look at salary cap space shows the Eagles have $9,856,286 available to roll over to 2025, while the Cowboys have $19,411,873 available.

According to Over The Cap, Philadelphia will start with over $31,102,970 before the cap rises, while Dallas will be at $19 million.

Looking at cap hits for 2025, Dak Prescott has $89,896,666, CeeDee Lamb has $35,450,000, and so on. In Philadelphia, Jalen Hurts has just $21 million against the cap, with A.J. Brown and Lane Johnson having $17 million.

Roseman is a wizard, and salary cap hell will likely never happen, regardless of the dead cap hits accrued by pushing time back with void years.

Cowboys among NFL’s top teams in this valuable roster-building strategy

The Cowboys are top-3 in the NFL in players playing on rookie contracts in 2024, finds @ReidDHanson

Building an NFL roster isn’t simply about finding and retaining talent. It’s also about knowing when to let go, knowing when to roll the dice and knowing where to find the most affordable labor force. For a team like the Cowboys, managing all three of these areas is critical to the wellbeing of the salary cap.

Though the cap is highly malleable, and the Cowboys aren’t remotely close to maximizing their purchasing power under it, it is in fact a real entity that should be responsibly managed. Owners of what will likely be four contracts each averaging $19+ million in 2025, the cost-conscience Cowboys will be interested in cutting costs at all possible corners to keep payroll low and their wallets fat.

One area where the Cowboys front office particularly excels in is populating their roster with players on rookie contracts. Under the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), players entering the NFL are capped on what they can receive in compensation from a team. Players often provide services well above their compensation levels, giving teams extraordinary bang for the buck throughout the length of their rookie deals.

In 2024 the Cowboys are the No. 3 team in the NFL in snaps by players under rookie deals. In other words, the Cowboys are getting more snaps from players who have been in the NFL less than four complete seasons than 28 other teams. This puts measurements like “snap weighted age” into perspective since it lands Dallas on the other side of the spectrum.

The Cowboys are 22nd in the snap weighted age (SWA) this season, meaning they are one of the older teams in the league based on contributions. What having the third most snaps on rookie contracts means is old players are skewing the numbers a bit on SWA and when those outliers fall off (possibly DeMarcus Lawrence, Zack Martin, Eric Kendricks and Brandin Cooks), the Cowboys will swing strongly to other side of the SWA spectrum.

What having the third-most snaps from rookie-deal players doesn’t say is how well those players are performing. Being No. 3 doesn’t mean much when the Cowboys are 5-7 and longshots for a postseason berth. It does, however, show Dallas favors their youth and is giving their developing labor force valuable snaps to build on. It also outlines a plan moving forward.

The Jonathan Mingo trade notwithstanding, the Cowboys value draft picks more than most other NFL teams. It allows them to afford their expensive superstars and it keeps the fan hope-o-meter pointing up as frequently as possible. It’s made middle class employees scarce in Dallas and requires a ready or not attitude with many offseason promotions, but it fills out a roster in the most affordable way possible.

There are many ways for NFL teams to construct winning rosters in the NFL, but options dwindle once superstars start getting paid like superstars. It’s safe to say the strategy of leaning on rookie contracts is here to stay for quite a while in Dallas.

Related articles

[affiliatewidget_smgtolocal]

[lawrence-auto-related count=3]

For Cowboys to be all-in, they need to re-sign Dak Prescott

“All in” can mean a number of things but if the Cowboys really intend to make a major effort in 2024, it means they have to re-sign Dak Prescott, says @ReidDHanson.

“The king is dead. Long live the king.” It’s a customary phrase said at the passing of a monarch. It symbolizes the turning of the page as the new king is coronated and serves to immediately shift focus from the past to the future.

For Cowboys’ fans – don’t worry, Jerry Jones appears to be in fine health – it illustrates the front office’s readiness to move on to the 2024 season. After such a disastrous ending to the previous campaign, the Cowboys are eager to pour dirt on the old season and immediate shift into 2024 mode in one fell swoop.

In discussions with reporters at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Jerry and Stephen Jones wasted no time hyping up the new season, giving just brief homage to the heartbreaking opportunity that was lost weeks ago.

“I think we’ll push the hell out of it,” Owner Jones said describing his level of aggressiveness in the coming offseason. “It will be going all in on different people than you’ve done in the past. We’ll be going all in…”

The, this year will be different vibe, was nothing new from Jones. The Cowboys’ master salesman does this every year about this time of winter, but use of the phrase “all in” was undoubtedly a new addition.

All-in is a strategy fans have been clamoring for, but the Cowboys have been avoiding. All in requires money and resources. It also could come at the cost of future campaigns. For a franchise that’s built on selling hope and hype each season, lean years are something they typically try to avoid.

But with fat new contracts approaching, the biggest window of opportunity appears to be closing. CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons will both be moving off their affordable rookie deals and into top-of-the-market territory. If Dallas wants to strike while the iron is hot and resources are available, 2024 is the time to do it.

Still, it’s difficult to hear the Joneses words without a certain degree of skepticism.

What is “all in?”

According to the most recent numbers from OTC, the Cowboys are over the cap already. Their -$22,805,299 in effective cap space ranks them bottom-six in the NFL this year. While most NFL fans know this cap number is highly malleable and not something that would inhibit a team from fulfilling their widest desires, the Cowboys typically paint the cap in a different light.

On countless occasions the Joneses have used the salary cap to explain and/or excuse their lack of activity in the offseason. They’ve used the excuse to avoid signing their own free agents and used it to explain why they didn’t sign good outside free agents.

The salary cap has served an important purpose for them and other owners. In many ways the salary cap was created by the owners to curb their own spending and justify it to their fanbases. It keeps their costs low and their profits high. It was made in the name of parity but used as a way to deflect blame.

When Jerry Jones says “all in” does he mean all that’s available today (which is nothing), a few dollars he’ll free up through restructuring deals in March (which is modest), or is he really talking about maximizing his spending power?