Patriots<\/a> for example) or will be called cheap and will be derided for not having gone all-in (Cowboys every year).<\/p>\nAnd 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:<\/p>\n
\u201cNever mistake activity for achievement\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWinning\u201d in free agency always means you paid more than anybody else was willing to pay for some big-name free agents, but doesn\u2019t always mean more wins the next season.<\/p>\n
Our own Dan Rogers recently looked at the correlation between free agency spending and wins, and the results don\u2019t look good for the big spenders:<\/p>\n
We do not yet know what the Cowboys will be doing in free agency this year, even if Jerry Jones talked about \u201cbusting the budget.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
With that in mind, while I would be very pleased to welcome the likes of DE Jaelen Phillips (#3 on NFL.com\u2019s 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\u2019s free agent list, but then will likely move on to signing more solid, durable and economical names.<\/p>\n
Last year, free agency officially opened on Wednesday, March 12, at 4:00 p.m. ET. However, the \u201cNegotiation Period\u201d 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\u2019s how those signings played out.<\/p>\n
March 10: RB Javonte WilliamsMarch 11: DT Solomon ThomasMarch 11: DE Payton TurnerMarch 11: OL Robert JonesMarch 12: LB Jack SanbornMarch 12: CB Kaiir Elam (via trade)March 12: LB Kenneth Murray (via trade)March 14: DE Dante FowlerMarch 15: RB Miles SandersMarch 15: WR Parris CampbellApril 3: QB Joe Milton (via trade)May 7: WR George Pickens (via trade)June 18: DT Perrion WinfreyJune 18: CB Robert RochellJuly 22: DE James Houston<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for the Cowboys, their defense is not exactly chock full of talent, so they\u2019ll have to get active at multiple defensive positions in free agency.<\/p>\n
Keep this in mind as the Cowboys enter free agency. Don\u2019t judge the Cowboys\u2019 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).<\/p>\n
Judge the Cowboys\u2019 free agency by how successful they are at building quality depth across their defense. And don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
Free agency starts in about a week, and shortly after that we\u2019ll be hotly debating which team \u201cwon\u201d free agency in 2026. Let\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Free agency officially begins on March 11, although the negotiation window opens two days earlier, and hell will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2066],"tags":[230,229,257,5355,2461,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-792026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-cowboys","8":"tag-cowboys","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-cowboys","11":"tag-dallas-cowboys-free-agency","12":"tag-dallascowboys","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116172423375788895","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}