Cowboys free agency spending compared to last year may be a shock
Speaking at the NFL combine this year, Jerry Jones hinted at what some thought would be a free agency spending spree this year.
“I would bet that we will spend more money in free agency than we have,” Jones said. “I want to do everything we possibly can to stop somebody and to basically win some third downs more than we did last year. And so I think that would be the area that you would see me bust the budget,” Jones said.
The first thing to note, and the thing that almost everybody ignored, is that Jones was speaking specifically about busting the budget to win on third down. On defense, that would likely be about investing mostly in the defensive line, and that certainly has happened.
However, the general assumption was that “busting the budget” meant significantly exceeding this year’s salary cap. But the way things are going, the Cowboys aren’t even spending at last year’s level on player acquisition.
This post was written on Saturday, March 14, which is the sixth day of free agency – the legal tampering period began on Monday, March 9, with free agency “officially” opening on Wednesday – and so far the Cowboys have spent a little over $145 million in total contract value on internal and external free agents (some contract data is still missing). By the sixth day of free agency last year, they had already spent $156 million.
Nobody is busting anything right now.
The table below summarizes the team’s activity in 2025 and 2026. The timeline indicates on which day a deal was reported, which is not necessarily the date of the official signing. In addition to the total contract value for each player, the table also shows the Year 1 cash spend for each player as best as I could find it. This is usually the sum of the signing bonus and year one salary at the time the contract was signed.
body .sbnu-legacy-content-table td, body .sbnu-legacy-content-table th, body .sbnu-legacy-content-table { border: 1px solid #000 !important; border-collapse: collapse !important; }| Timeline | 2025 | 2026 | |||||||||
| Date | Pos | Player | Contract Value | Cash (Year 1) | Date | POS | Player | Contract Value | Cash (Year 1) | ||
| Pre-Free Agency | March 4 | CB | C.J. Goodwin (re-signed) | 1,255,000 | 1,255,000 | February 14 | RB | Javonte Williams (re-signed) | 24,000,000 | 8,750,000 | |
| March 4 | DT | Osa Odighizuwa (resigned) | 80,000,000 | 21,750,000 | February 27 | WR | George Pickens (tagged) | 27,298,000 | 27,298,000 | ||
| March 5 | OL | Brock Hoffman (re-signed) | 1,100,000 | 1,100,000 | March 7 | K | Brandon Aubrey (tendered) | 5,760,000 | 5,760,000 | ||
| March 5 | S | Juanyeh Thomas (resigned) | 1,030,000 | 1,030,000 | March 7 | OL | T,J, Bass (tendered) | 5,760,000 | 5,760,000 | ||
| March 5 | DE | Tyrus Wheat (re-signed) | 1,030,000 | 1,030,000 | |||||||
| March 9 | S | Markquese Bell (re-signed) | 9,000,000 | 3,700,000 | |||||||
| Free Agency Day 1 | March 10 | RB | Javonte Williams | 3,000,000 | 3,000,000 | March 9 | DE | Rashan Gary (via trade) | 32,000,000 | 15,000,000 | |
| March 10 | LS | Trent Sieg (re-signed) | 4,450,000 | 1,805,000 | March 9 | S | Jalen Thompson | 33,000,000 | 12,500,000 | ||
| Day 2 | March 11 | DT | Solomon Thomas | 6,000,000 | 3,000,000 | March 10 | S | P.J. Locke | 5,000,000 | 5,000,000 | |
| March 11 | DE | Payton Turner | 2,500,000 | 2,500,000 | March 10 | DT | Otito Ogbonnia | 3,000,000 | 3,000,000 | ||
| March 11 | OL | Robert Jones | 3,750,000 | 3,750,000 | March 10 | DE | Sam Williams (re-signed) | 2,500,000 | 2,500,000 | ||
| March 11 | KR | Kavontae Turpin (re-signed) | 13,500,000 | 5,000,000 | |||||||
| March 11 | P | Bryan Anger (re-signed) | 6,400,000 | 3,300,000 | |||||||
| Day 3 | March 12 | LB | Kenneth Murray (via trade) | 7,500,000 | 7,500,000 | March 11 | DE | Tyrus Wheat | 1,755,000 | 1,755,000 | |
| March 12 | CB | Kaiir Elam (via trade) | 1,100,000 | 1,100,000 | March 11 | QB | Sam Howell | tbd | tbd | ||
| March 12 | LB | Jack Sanborn | 1,500,000 | 1,500,000 | |||||||
| Day 4 | March 13 | OL | Dakoda Shepley | 2,315,000 | 1,157,500 | March 12 | CB | Cobie Durant | 5,500,000 | 5,500,000 | |
| March 13 | S | Israel Mukuamu (re-signed) | 1,750,000 | 1,750,000 | |||||||
| Day 5 | March 14 | DE | Dante Fowler | 6,000,000 | 6,000,000 | March 13 | OL | Matt Hennessy | tbd | tbd | |
| March 14 | RB | Miles Sanders | 1,337,500 | 1,337,500 | March 13 | TE | Princeton Fant (re-signed) | tbd | tbd | ||
| Day 6 | March 15 | WR | Parris Campbell | 1,337,500 | 1,337,500 | ||||||
| Total | 155,855,000 | 73,902,500 | 145,573,000 | 91,068,000 | |||||||
You’ll have quickly noticed that the table contains both internal and external free agents, and some have argued that we should only be looking at external signings. But both are signed from the same budget, so for cap purposes they are the same.
As it stands today, the Cowboys have spent less in total contract value this year than they did last year. And the contract value numbers aren’t going to change much once the contracts for Howell, Hennessy, and Fant come in.
This doesn’t mean the Cowboys didn’t get better this year. There is a significant difference in the quality of free agents they’ve signed versus last year, when they signed a bunch of bargain guys instead of actual NFL players. And yes, the numbers would look different had they signed Maxx Crosby or one of the premier linebackers they were after, but close doesn’t count. And yes, they still have two first-round picks and a third that can be used in a trade or to draft more quality defensive players. And yes, you could argue the 2025 numbers are inflated by Odighuzuwa’s contract, but that’s pretty much the going price for a defensive tackle, internal or external.
But the Cowboys didn’t bust anything so far.
And if you think they’ll catch up to last year’s spend in the coming days, weeks, or months, h0ld your horses. Because the Cowboys didn’t stop signing players after the sixth day of free agency last year. These are the additions they made through May last year:
body .sbnu-legacy-content-table td, body .sbnu-legacy-content-table th, body .sbnu-legacy-content-table { border: 1px solid #000 !important; border-collapse: collapse !important; }| Timeline | 2025 | ||||
| Date | Pos | Player | Contract Value | Cash (Year 1) | |
| Post-Free Agency | March 4 | CB | C.J. Goodwin (re-signed) | 1,255,000 | 1,255,000 |
| April 3 | QB | Joe Milton (via trade) | 3,225,000 | 960,000 | |
| April 09 | OL | Saahdiq Charles | 1,170,000 | 1,170,000 | |
| April 17 | OL | Hakeem Adeneji | 1,170,000 | 1,170,000 | |
| April 25 | OG | Tyler Smith (fifth-year option) | 23,400,000 | 23,400,000 | |
| May 7 | WR | George Pickens (via trade) | 3,656,000 | 3,656,000 | |
| Total | 32,621,000 | 30,356,000 | |||
Tyler Smith would end up signing a new four-year, $96 million contract later in the year which lowered his Year 1 cash value to $17.6 million, but these are the numbers through May last year.
The good news, if you will, is that the Cowboys could still hand out contracts worth about $43 million just to catch up to last year’s spending, never mind busting anything.
But how did we end up in a place where one side talks about busting the budget and the other side is disappointed about the amount of money spent in free agency?
The first follow-up question to Jerry’s “bust the budget” quote should have been “What budget?”
Allow me to explain.
Remember when Jerry Jones said in July 2024 that Lamb, Prescott, and Parsons (who were all waiting for contract extensions at the time) could account for up to 70% of the Cowboys payroll?
“Those three players you mean could be 70 percent of all the money you got — 70 percent of your payroll,”
Social media reaction was swift and merciless.
Even with their eventual cap hits (Prescott: $60 million AAV, Lamb: $34 million, Parsons via GB: $46.5), the trio would not count more than 55% against the $255 million salary cap in 2024 – and there was always the possibility of restructuring those contracts to lower the cap hit.
So, was Jerry Jones exaggerating for effect or maybe even outright lying?
Not at all.
What most people fail to understand is that the Cowboys are a Cash-To-Cap team. Cash-To-Cap is the idea that your cash spend equals your salary cap every year. A cash-to-cap approach does not mean that you never prorate any part of a player’s salary, that just isn’t feasible in today’s NFL with some of the megabucks contracts in play today. But you try to limit the use of contract devices aimed at pushing costs into future years.
The benefit of a cash-to-cap approach is that, in principle, because you’re only spending what you have available under the cap, you won’t run into cap difficulties where you have to cut player contracts, reduce your spend on players salaries, or field a team full of players on rookie or league minimum contracts just to get under the cap. Cash-to-cap works to preserve cap flexibility in the future if, inevitably, contracts do not work out, and helps avoid future dead money.
The other benefit, especially for the Jones family, is that you get to whine and moan publicly about the salary cap, you can liberally throw around the term “cap hell” in your off-the-record talks with local media, you can pontificate about the size of the salary cap pie, and much more – all because you are unwilling to spend more than your self-imposed limit.
“We spend max, max money year in and year out. All 32 can only spend the same amount of money over a five-year stretch,” Stephen Jones said (via 105.3 The Fan in Dallas). “When we’re all said and done, we max out our salary cap every year.”
All of which means the Cowboys are primarily focused on the actual cash they spend every year, not some annual contract averages.
Cash-Over-Cap teams operate differently. Cash-Over-Cap is the idea that your cash spend frequently or consistently exceeds your salary cap. You’re essentially borrowing from future years to increase your cash spend in the current year, allowing you to consistently spend more on your team than Cash-To-Cap teams, hoping that a higher spend will lead to better results. And this works as long as the salary cap keeps increasing, which it has over the last decades.
“Busting the budget” would require the Cowboys to act like a Cash-Over-Cap team, something they’ve abhorred in the past, and would likely require them to exceed the salary cap with their cash spend.
And now back to Jerry’s 70% comment.
In Year 1 cash, Prescott ended up costing the Cowboys $86.3 million, Lamb cost $39.2 million, and Parsons signed in Green Bay for $45.2 million in Year 1 cash. Combined, that’s $170.7 million and would have been 67% of the 2024 cap, which is very close to the 70% Jones mentioned.
Jerry wasn’t lying. He was just talking about a different budget than everybody assumed.
You’ll notice that the tables above also contain the Year 1 cash spend, which I conveniently glossed over in my initial comments. At $91.1 million this year versus $73.9 million, the Cowboys are already spending 23% more than they did last year. And that percentage could climb to ~27-30% once we add the numbers for Howell, Hennessy, and Fant. And they will climb even higher if the Cowboys find a linebacker and perhaps another OLB on the free agency market, or execute another trade or two.
And if they find a way to sign George Pickens and Brandon Aubrey to long-term contracts this year, that Year 1 cash number will balloon even further this year.
Is that “busting the budget”? In the Cowboys’ minds, it certainly is. For many non-accountants discussing NFL accounting numbers, it probably isn’t.
In the end, both can be true:
- The Cowboys are not (yet) spending as much in free agency as many expected.
- Free agency made the Cowboys much better this year, especially on defense, than it did last year.
And that’s already something.
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