Cowboys cap strategy must evolve to keep contending

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Cowboys cap strategy must evolve to keep contending originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
If you're serious about contending, it's time to start keeping up with the Joneses, so to speak.
As highlighted by Blogging The Boys, Jerry Jones' Dallas Cowboys are drastically behind the league's elite in both total void-year spending and the number of high-salary players on their roster. The Eagles lead the NFL with a staggering $452 million in void-year allocations — a strategy that has allowed them to maintain one of the deepest rosters in football.
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In contrast, the Cowboys rank 16th with just $44 million in future void years, most of it tied up in Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb. Philadelphia also has 10 players making at least $10 million annually, while Dallas has just five.
The difference isn't necessarily about being "cheap''; it's about refusing to use every tool (or loophole) available to win now.
The best teams in the league have figured it out. The salary cap isn't a hard ceiling; it's a strategy game. You can manipulate the cap through void years, restructures, and deferred money ... all with the understanding that the NFL dollar is ever inflating.
The cap is fake today and real tomorrow ... but is not a team-building restriction.
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Rather, it is simple accounting.
And it's something we've been saying for years.
The Cowboys have slowly shown signs of a 'changing of the guard' in how they approach cap management, but complacency or old-fashioned thinking or maybe frugality still looms to a degree.
In a family-run front office, there's no pressure from ownership to push harder. ... because of course here, "the front office'' and "ownership'' are one in the same.
That's exactly why fans must keep applying it. (For whatever good that does.)
Micah Parsons, Tyler Smith, DaRon Bland, and George Pickens are next in line and the Cowboys could quickly shrink the "talent gap" in the NFC with those specific extensions.
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Get ahead of the ever-increasing positional market that also parallels with the ever-ballooning cap.
Push some money into future void years and trust the cap growth.
Do it now.
For years, the Cowboys have leaned on in-house superstar retention, cheap labor and compensatory picks as the foundation of their roster-building philosophy. And to a degree, it's worked — they draft well, they find value, and they stay under budget.
But there's a ceiling to that approach. ... as exhibited by the fact that they win regular-season games ... and nothing more.
You can't build a Super Bowl roster on rookie deals alone. At some point, you have to pay to keep your homegrown stars and you have to supplement that core with proven, high-priced talent.
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Comp picks are nice — but banners aren't raised for mastering the comp pick formula. They're raised for winning in January and February. And that requires financial aggression, not financial caution.
The league is evolving — and if the Cowboys truly want to stop spinning their wheels, they need to spend like contenders and exploit every modern cap tool available.
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This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 11, 2025, where it first appeared.