The Cowboys had a busy offseason when it comes to contract extensions. In April, Dallas signed edge rusher Demarcus Lawrence to a $21 million-per-year deal. The team followed that with contracts for linebacker Jaylon Smith ($12.75 million per year), right tackle La’el Collins ($10 million per year) and running back Ezekiel Elliott ($15 million per year).
This is just the tip of the iceberg for the Cowboys, who still have to take care of quarterback Dak Prescott, wide receiver Amari Cooper and cornerback Byron Jones. The challenge is not impossible as long as Dallas navigates it correctly.
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With the Elliott deal, the Cowboys now carry six contracts that average at least $10 million per season, making them one of nine NFL teams that have so many such players. Prescott has contract upside in the $33 million-per-year range, while Cooper will get close to $20 million per year and Jones around $15 million per year.
If Prescott and Cooper reach those figures, Dallas will be the only team in the NFL with a $30 million QB, a $20 million defender and a $20 million WR, not to mention a $15 million RB.
In the short term, this should not be a problem for the Cowboys.
Current estimates for Dallas' 2020 salary cap room are around $70 million, and that includes the Elliott signing. While some of that space must be set aside for rookies, restricted free-agent tenders and emergency funds, it should be more than enough to sign Prescott, Cooper and Jones, even if it means carrying one or two of them on a franchise and/or transition tag.
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As for the long term, things will be more challenging for Dallas.
The concept of having a lineup of a large number of highly paid players is not new in the NFL. I call this the "stars and scrubs" strategy; a team pays a bunch of star players big money and fills the rest of the roster with low-cost draft picks, undrafted free agents and lower-level veterans.
Both the Seahawks and Packers had a relatively high level of success with this strategy a few years ago. The Vikings currently are applying it to their roster.
Lessons can be learned from all three.
The Seahawks and Vikings in particular have battled tight salary cap situations. Seattle's struggles came in large part because it used short-term contracts on its players, generally with four-year extensions. That leaves a team with less wiggle room under the salary cap since the figures can't be manipulated as much, and it can create situations in which players seek extensions too early in the process. The Seahawks also were relatively active in free agency.
The Vikings’ struggles come from a similar place. Their biggest contract is that of QB Kirk Cousins, who signed for just three years and has basically unmovable cap charges of $29 million and $31 million in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Minnesota had to do some extensions early to better navigate the cap, and the team also fell into a trap in which it struggled to move on from players who probably should not have been brought back given their cap constraints. Sill, the Vikings are functioning without significant problems.
The Packers never faced these kinds of issues because they favored longer-term deals and never signed a player of note in free agency. While not being aggressive in free agency might have hurt Green Bay’s upside on the field, it showed the best way to mitigate the risks of big contracts.
What stands out about the Cowboys' scenario is how long their current player contracts are. For example, when they extended left tackle Tyron Smith to a record-setting deal, they locked him up for 10 years.
Other than Lawrence, who is signed for five seasons, all of Dallas’ recently signed players are locked in for at least six years. That means the Cowboys will avoid the second contract issues that plagued the Seahawks and Vikings, and they also will have some flexibility to manipulate cap figures through conversion of salary to bonus. As contracts age, they grow smaller relative to the salary cap.
However, to make this work for the long term, Dallas can’t play the waiting game on their players. Wasting time before reaching deals with Prescott, Cooper and Jones makes no sense.
One of the reasons Lawrence received a five-year extension was the fact that his prior contract was expired. He had more leverage. If Dallas has to get into franchise tags and four-year deals for its upcoming free agents, it will face the same problems Seattle faced, and probably worse.
In getting deals done as early as possible this season, the Cowboys likely will be able to leave themselves an ability not only to keep all of their key players for the long term, but also to have the wiggle room to sign a player or two in free agency.
And when it comes to free agency, Dallas will need to show restraint moving forward due to all of its big contracts. That should not be difficult, as the Cowboys have more or less avoided major names on the open market for years. Dallas will have to hit the draft to continue to improve, using free agency sparingly to fill minor voids.
The one concern around Dallas’ strategy is the pending NFL collective bargaining agreement (CBA) update. The Cowboys’ ability to function with so many big deals is contingent on the salary cap growing around $10 million per year, just as it has for the last five years.
There have been no rumblings that the NFL will look to reduce the salary cap in a new CBA, but in the last negotiation almost a decade ago, the league pulled the cap down by about $10 million, and it barely grew over the following two seasons. If that were to happen again, teams like the Cowboys would be hurt.
Barring that change, though, the Cowboys should have no major issues navigating their salary cap with their big contracts — as long as they continue to use their current contract structures and are cautious in free agency.