In a way, Cowboys executive VP Stephen Jones, who also happens to be the son of owner Jerry Jones, is right when he says that the Cowboys could not do much of anything in free agency this offseason because of the elephants in the room—contract extensions needed for star players Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons.
But on Monday, he blamed the team’s inability (or unwillingness) to sign star running back Derrick Henry on those players’ contracts, and that’s more technically true than it is realistically true. Yes, the Cowboys have big, fat salary numbers on the books for Prescott ($55 million) and Lamb ($18 million) and, yes, the Cowboys have just $2.7 million in effective cap space, per OverTheCap.com.
Henry, who earned his fourth Pro Bowl selection in 2023, signed with Baltimore for $16 million over two years. With the Cowboys’ current cap situation, he was never going to fit in Dallas. But the thing is, if the Cowboys had worked out an extension with Prescott—and/or Lamb, for that matter—they could have reduced the cap hit for 2024 on those contracts and carved out cap space.
Enough for a star running back like, say, Derrick Henry. Instead, the Cowboys have chosen to play some weird “all-in” hardball with Prescott, perhaps paving the way for him to hit free agency in 2025.
Cowboys Salary Cap Left No Room for Derrick Henry
But let’s give Stephen Jones the floor, as he was asked specifically about Henry by Adam Schein of SiriusXM Radio. Here’s how he framed things (via NBC Sports’ PFT):
“Well, first of all, nothing but respect for Derrick Henry. I mean, he’s one of the top backs in this league. … Our situation is just, you know, and no one ever wants to say it, but it’s salary cap, and we just didn’t have the money to allocate to that position in terms of where we were from a cap standpoint, knowing what we’re looking at with Dak and certainly Micah and CeeDee Lamb.
“We just didn’t have those type of resources to allocate to that position or we probably would’ve already had it filled with Tony Pollard. We hated to lose Tony Pollard. We had to lose Zeke the year before from a cap standpoint. And, you know, we just didn’t have the dollars to allocate to the running back position. And, certainly, looking to do it in a more efficient way in terms of how it complements the rest of our offensive roster.”
The Cowboys did, in fact, let Pollard walk, also, on a three-year, $24 million contract that was less than what he’d gotten on a per-year basis playing for the franchise-tag number ($10 million) in 2023.
All In or All-or-Nothing?
For the Cowboys, despite Jones’s framing, it was not so much a matter of not having the cap space to sign Henry—or Pollard or anyone else, for that matter. It was how the team managed the contracts that they had.
They could have reworked Prescott’s deal last year, knowing full well that he was set for a serious spike in 2024. They could have pushed through a massive extension for Lamb. Both played as well as anyone at their positions last season, and if the deals had gotten done early, the Cowboys could have had money to spend this offseason.
And in both cases, new contracts would have been a relief valve for this season’s salary-cap situation.
But the Cowboys are taking a hard line. After another postseason disappointment following the disastrous 48-32 loss to Green Bay on their home field, the Cowboys brain trust determined that they were not going to commit to this roster beyond 2024. And they’re doing that even if it means sacrificing short-term success.
It’s a risky strategy. But that’s the real reason they team could not make splashy free-agent signings.
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