The Dallas Cowboys have thus far been uncharacteristically active in the days leading up to free agency.
They got a deal done with their most significant pending free agent — Osa Odighizuwa — before the market actually opened. They also restructured the contracts of both CeeDee Lamb and Dak Prescott several days in advance of next week’s opening bell, giving themselves plenty of room to work with.
They now have more than $54 million in cap room, according to Over the Cap, the eighth-most in the NFL. It all seemingly aligns with their plan to, as Stephen Jones put it, be “selectively aggressive” during this free agency period.
Or at least it would, if Jerry Jones didn’t disagree on the use of the word aggressive to describe his team’s plans.
“I don’t think aggressive is the right word,” Jones said this week, after future Hall-of-Fame guard Zack Martin’s retirement press conference. “I think when we see a part that a player that can take us in a direction that can improve where we’re going to be pretty significantly from where we’re going to be if that opportunity wasn’t there — whether it be the talent of that individual player, or whether it be addressing any perceived places we need help; I wouldn’t call us really void in any area, void if you include what we’re going to do in the draft, I wouldn’t see that — so as to your question in addressing free agency, I’m not looking at free agency as a place to fill voids.”
That’s a characteristically convoluted answer, but it amounts to Jones seemingly saying that the Cowboys don’t have any roster holes and so they don’t really need to use free agency to fill them, which isn’t their plan anyway. Thankfully, a reporter asked a clarifying question about whether he believes the team doesn’t have any holes on the roster.
“Not if you include what might work for us in the draft and what we’re doing with our own roster relative to who we would sign,” Jones said.
Cowboys reportedly restructure Dak Prescott contract: How much did Dallas clear up in salary cap space?
Jeff Kerr
Let’s be clear: Jones is either lying or he is sticking his head in the sand. The Cowboys have holes pretty much everywhere on their roster. With the exception of quarterback (Prescott), No. 1 wide receiver (Lamb), left guard (Tyler Smith) and the top edge rusher (Micah Parsons), interior defensive lineman (Odighizuwa) and cornerback (Daron Bland) on the team, there isn’t a position where the Cowboys should feel satisfied. They need help everywhere, as we saw throughout last season.
There’s also no real reason to think Jones is telling the truth about Dallas’ plans. You don’t create $54 million in cap room for no reason. And no, the reason is not to sign Parsons to an extension. A new deal for Parsons would actually lower his cap hit and give Dallas even more room to work with, pushing the Cowboys north of $72 million to spend if the deal gets done in advance of free agency.
Will the Cowboys splash the pot at the top of the market? Probably not. They haven’t really done that since signing Brandon Carr away from the Chiefs more than a decade ago. Maybe they’ll re-sign guys like Jourdan Lewis and even Demarcus Lawrence or Chauncey Golston. Or maybe they’ll make a trade. But the idea that they’re not going to use free agency to fill at least some “voids,” as Jones put it, doesn’t pass the smell test this time around.
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