Cowboys Jerry Jones Changes The Approach From “All-In” To “Win With Less”

This offseason, the Dallas Cowboys front office’s rhetoric has formally changed in all directions. Jerry Jones, the owner, has made the decision to alter the team-building strategy!

Cowboys Jerry Jones Changes The Approach From “All-In” To “Win With Less”

After an embarrassing postseason meltdown against the NFC’s seventh-seeded and youngest team in the NFL, the Green Bay Packers, 48-32, at AT&T Stadium on NFC Super Wild Card Weekend, Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones made it clear that the team would be “all in” on upgrading its roster.

The Cowboys have signed only one outside free agent, linebacker Eric Kendricks. Along with the departure of defensive end Dante Fowler, defensive tackle Neville Gallimore, defensive end Tony Pollard, defensive end Dorance Armstrong, center Tyler Biadasz, and left tackle Tyron Smith, they also re-signed Jourdan Lewis and long snapper Trent Sieg to one-year contracts.

Even if they wanted to, the Cowboys’ inability to sign a long-term contract with Dak Prescott and his $55.455 million cap cost would severely limit their options in free agency. Furthermore, they don’t.

The last major signing the Cowboys made in free agency was 2012, when they added Brandon Carr, a highly sought-after cornerback, among others. Jerry Jones’ “all-in” remark at the Scouting Combine was therefore seen as a surprise .

The Cowboys could have spread out their current and future cap hits over future years to have more room to bolster the roster now if they had proactively extended 2023 NFL MVP runner-up quarterback Dak Prescott, whose $59.5 million cap hit in 2024 (the last year of his current contract) is set to be the second-highest in the league, and 2023 receptions leader wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, whose $17.991 fully guaranteed fifth-year option is the last season of his rookie deal.

Jones is willing to “get it done with less” despite losing six starters and depth at several spots. The club is the only one since the AFL/NFL merger in 1970 to win 12 or more games in three straight seasons without making it to the conference championship round.

“I have been more all-in before,” Jones said, via Clarence Hill of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “By any definition and I have more all-in to make a run back to the line of scrimmage then I’ve been to run for 50 yards. It took more all-in to just get back to the line of scrimmage than it did to run for 50 yards. Sometimes that is a bigger challenge. That is really the gist of what we’re about this year. We’ve got to get it done.

“I think that we have been in a situation where we can get it done with lesser. More doesn’t necessarily beat Green Bay. There are other things. Maybe having it better strategically in different spots, but more than necessarily beat them, either. So we’re going to be asked to do some things different because we’ve got some different players.”

Prescott’s deal expires after this season, so the Cowboys might choose to let him play out the remaining years. However, wherever he plays in 2025, the quarterback would count $40.460 million against the team’s quota.

This season, the Cowboys have dead cap hits totaling $16 million, which includes $6 million for Smith and $6 million for Ezekiel Elliott.

“What we doing here can hit the next five years because it can impact us that far,” Jones said. “So you’ve got some real, real decisions. We have huge amounts of money that hit our cap for dollars we’ve spent on players for either a period of time when they played or the player himself that won’t be here in the future. We won’t be getting an ounce out of them in 2024.”

“My point is that clarity,” Jones said. “I think, as we move through, the clarity of the relationship to the salary cap to where and how you want to coordinate your roster, to me, has gotten clearer and clearer and clearer over time. If you want the running back to be 70 percent of your offense, maybe you’d better pay him a lot more. But if you’re not going to use him like that, you’re right, you might can do it with less. … Get used to it. We’re gonna have to have some young ones step in. ”

After the loss to the Packers, the Cowboys front office no longer believes that building the most star-studded roster by paying top dollar for those players is the best course of action. Prescott, Lamb, Parsons, Zack Martin, Trevon Diggs, and DaRon Bland are the only players still in the lineup. Jones claims that’s changing, although some people might think that’s a bit harsh.

Nevertheless, according to OverTheCap.com, Jones is earmarking room for agreements involving Prescott, Lamb, and Parsons, who will all be close to the top of their respective positional markets following the consumption of little more than $16 million in dead money on the 2024 salary limit. Elliott is slightly over  $6 million of that figure.

What was Jerry Jones famous for?

He is the only man in NFL history to have won a Super Bowl and play for a college football team that won a national title. Furthermore, only two men—Jones and the late George Halas—have gone on to become owners of NFL teams after participating in a significant college football bowl game.

How many rings does Jerry Jones have?

The Cowboys won three Super Bowls under Jones’ leadership: XXVII, XXVIII, and XXX. The Cowboys made it to the postseason in 2016, 2018, 2021, 2022, and 2023, giving them eighteen postseason appearances throughout the Jones era, demonstrating their unwavering devotion to winning.

Who owned Cowboys before Jerry Jones?

The Cowboys were sold to Jerry Jones in 1989 by H. R. “Bum” Bright, who had acquired the franchise from Murchison in 1984.

 

 

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