Dallas Cowboys face tall task balancing cap room and pending free agents
The Dallas Cowboys have plenty of cap room for the 2020 offseason, but with over 30 players coming off the books, tough decisions await.
The Dallas Cowboys have a ton of top players they will look to re-sign before the 2020 offseason if they want to keep them in Dallas. The front office is already struggling to try to decide what Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott and Amari Cooper are worth and giving them what’s fair for both the player and the team.
The Cowboys front office won’t be able to rest after they sign those three players either. They have a total of 35 players with a contract that expires in 2020. Obviously, the Cowboys can’t bring back all of those players, but if they don’t re-sign the right guys at the right price, they could be in trouble in the future.
A lot of the players whose deals will come up are replaceable, guys low on the depth chart who won’t directly affect the outcome of a game. But for the guys who are starters or pivotal guys to how the Cowboys function, some could be without a contract this time next year. Players like Byron Jones, Jaylon Smith and Maliek Collins are among those that will be seeking a new deal this year. Those players are an essential part of what the Cowboys do on defense.
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For the offense, the Cowboys could lose a majority of their receiving corps next summer if they can’t reach a deal. After Cooper, the group of deals coming up includes Allen Hurns, Randall Cobb, Tavon Austin, along with tight ends Jason Witten, Rico Gathers and Blake Jarwin.
This could become a massive problem for the Cowboys because everyone on that list has a number they think they’re worth and, if the Cowboys can’t offer them that, then they could see a lot of their offensive production walk next offseason.
The Cowboys could see their best defensive back, linebacker and receiver sign with a new team next year if they don’t play their cards right. The Cowboys currently sit at just under $20 million under the cap for 2019, allowing them to sign a few guys before the season.
For 2020, they currently have $84 million to spend before they reach the cap. I expect the Cowboys to use most of that $19 million for 2019, so you can go ahead and knock the 2020 cap room down to approximately $70 million. This could lead to a busy offseason in 2020 for the Cowboys if they plan to keep some of those top-tier players before free agency starts.
The Cowboys haven’t had that much cap room in a long time, if ever, so signing these guys to future deals isn’t a reach. Now it’s just a matter of who will take a pay cut to keep this young team together and keep the momentum going. We could also come across Jerry Jones overpaying too many players, leaving him with only a few players he could re-sign next offseason.
Jones wants to win one more Super Bowl before it’s all said and done and it looks like he wants to do it with Prescott under center. This puts Jones in a tough position when deciding how he is going to spend his money on players for the future. The Cowboys definitely have the young talent to get back to the Super Bowl, they just need a few more pieces to complete the puzzle.
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The Jones family have a lot to think about over the next year or so and their decisions could make or break a championship run in the future. It should be obvious who the priorities to re-sign should be, but we’ve seen Jerry Jones make bad decisions previously, so that can never be ruled out.