2026 NFL Free Agency: Activity does not equal achievement
Free agency officially begins on March 11, although the negotiation window opens two days earlier, and hell will break loose. The first big free agent names will agree to deals within the first couple of hours. A day or two later, you’ll see the first articles and broadcasts pop up listing the winners and losers of free agency in 2026, even though something like 90% of the available free agents will not have signed contracts yet.
Last year for example, The Athletic, CBS.com, and PFF.com all crowned the Vikings the winners of free agency. The Vikings, coming off a 14-3 season promptly went on to miss the playoffs and ended up firing their GM. The Vikings were the only team with an A+ free agency grade from PFF, while last year’s Super Bowl teams, Seattle and New England got a B- and B+ respectively. SI.com had the Steelers and Cowboys as their offseason winners, that didn’t turn out great either. ESPN declared Sam Darnold a free agency loser. Darnold would, of course, go on and win a ring with Seattle.
Proclaiming instant winners and losers in free agency is an annual rite that has much more to do with pre-existing narratives than with the free agency acquisitions themselves.
Teams that go on a free agent shopping spree will either be called brilliant and forward thinking (see the Eagles) or stupid and stuck in their ways (Commanders every year). Teams largely content to tread water until the market calms down before making targeted free agent acquisitions will be called clever and enterprising (Packers and Patriots for example) or will be called cheap and will be derided for not having gone all-in (Cowboys every year).
And while all of this makes for good headlines and simple story-writing, it completely ignores a simple reality best encapsulated by a quote attributed to legendary basketball coach John Wooden:
“Never mistake activity for achievement”
“Winning” in free agency always means you paid more than anybody else was willing to pay for some big-name free agents, but doesn’t always mean more wins the next season.
Our own Dan Rogers recently looked at the correlation between free agency spending and wins, and the results don’t look good for the big spenders:
We do not yet know what the Cowboys will be doing in free agency this year, even if Jerry Jones talked about “busting the budget.” The Cowboys traditionally have been content to let the market come to them. In 2024, the Cowboys signed just two external free agents. Ahead of the 2025 season, the Cowboys signed 11 external free agents, a significant increase from the previous year. In both years, they finished with only seven wins.
With that in mind, while I would be very pleased to welcome the likes of DE Jaelen Phillips (#3 on NFL.com’s free agent list), LB Devin Loyd (#7), or EDGE Odafe Oweh (#11) in Dallas, I would also be very surprised if any of those players actually end up wearing the star. The reality probably is that the Cowboys may sign one or maybe even two flashy names at the top of everyone’s free agent list, but then will likely move on to signing more solid, durable and economical names.
Last year, free agency officially opened on Wednesday, March 12, at 4:00 p.m. ET. However, the “Negotiation Period” began 52 hours earlier on Monday, March 10, at noon. The Cowboys announced one signing on the first day of the Negotiation Period, added three more players on the second day, and then added five more players over the course of the next three days. Here’s how those signings played out.
- March 10: RB Javonte Williams
- March 11: DT Solomon Thomas
- March 11: DE Payton Turner
- March 11: OL Robert Jones
- March 12: LB Jack Sanborn
- March 12: CB Kaiir Elam (via trade)
- March 12: LB Kenneth Murray (via trade)
- March 14: DE Dante Fowler
- March 15: RB Miles Sanders
- March 15: WR Parris Campbell
- April 3: QB Joe Milton (via trade)
- May 7: WR George Pickens (via trade)
- June 18: DT Perrion Winfrey
- June 18: CB Robert Rochell
- July 22: DE James Houston
And that’s an approach the Cowboys share with some of the more successful NFL franchises who will mostly take a wait-and-see approach and hold still until the initial free agent frenzy is over. In the NFL, the draft is where you get your top-tier talent. When you fail to draft that talent, you have to get it via free agency, often at exorbitant cost. When you succeed in drafting talent, you can focus on re-signing your own talent and you can then use free agency to improve the depth across your roster.
Unfortunately for the Cowboys, their defense is not exactly chock full of talent, so they’ll have to get active at multiple defensive positions in free agency.
Keep this in mind as the Cowboys enter free agency. Don’t judge the Cowboys’ free agency by how quickly they sign players or by whether they sign a big-name player (who is always one injury away from having zero impact for his team).
Judge the Cowboys’ free agency by how successful they are at building quality depth across their defense. And don’t discount trades as a means by which to build the roster, even after free agency. And finally, keep your fingers crossed that once the draft rolls around, the Cowboys find at least two big-time talents to help them rebuild their defense.
Free agency starts in about a week, and shortly after that we’ll be hotly debating which team “won” free agency in 2026. Let’s hope the Cowboys are part of that debate for the right reasons, and not because they threw a lot of money at big-name players who may not end up helping the team.
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