Every year during free agency, there\u2019s almost no big-name free agent that isn\u2019t linked to the Cowboys at some point. This year, there was almost no free agent pass rusher or linebacker the Cowboys weren\u2019t linked to, the more expensive the better.<\/p>\n
And while we collectively like to point our fingers at Big Media and admonish them for writing stories linking premier free agents to the Cowboys, some of the worst offenders are Cowboys fans themselves who flood comment boards, blogs, and social media with ideas about which players the Cowboys should acquire – only to then be disappointed when the Cowboys don\u2019t sign them.<\/p>\n
So while the calls for Maxx Crosby, Trey Hendrickson, Jaelen Phillips, Devin Lloyd, Nakobe Dean, Quay Walker, and many others went unheeded, the Cowboys quietly went about their business and spent over $100 million on free agents in March. That\u2019s right, over $100 million!<\/p>\n
How can that be, the interested reader wants to know, doesn\u2019t spotrac.com show the Cowboys with a meagre $52.7 (25th in the NFL) in free agency contract value<\/a>, and doesn\u2019t OverTheCap.com also show the Cowboys ranked 25th, but with $76.7 million in free agency spend<\/a>? And now we\u2019re saying over $100 million?<\/p>\n Well, surprisingly, all three can be true at the same time.<\/p>\n To understand what\u2019s going on, we need to recognize that contract value is just one part of the equation in free agency. In free agency, headlines blasting out contract values are the norm, but the value of an NFL contract is not in the total contract dollars or in the length of the contract.<\/p>\n What really matters in any NFL contract is the amount of guaranteed money. Teams owe their newly-signed free agents only the guaranteed portion of their contracts, and nothing more. And when that guaranteed portion is used up, it often signals the end of that player\u2019s tenure with his new team. So how does this square with what spotrac and OTC are showing? For one thing, the values I quoted above were for total contract values. In terms of guaranteed money, spotrac shows the Cowboys with $31.4 million (26th) and OTC has the Cowboys with $49.2 million (23rd), with the main difference being which players each site does and does not include.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s an overview of the players the Cowboys have signed so far this year, along with the contract terms that have become available so far.<\/p>\n Cowboys guaranteed money by player, 2026<\/p>\n Player Jalen Thompson P.J. Locke Sam Howell Matt Hennessy Cobie Durant Otito Ogbonnia Tyrus Wheat Jonathan Bullard Derion Kendrick Javonte Williams Sam Williams George Pickens Rashan Gary Terence Steele Malik Hooker Brandon Aubrey T.J. Bass Corey Ballentine Josh Butler Reddy Steward Jonathan Mingo Grand Totals Spotrac does not include players re-signed from a team\u2019s own roster in their tally, OTC does, but doesn\u2019t include trades (Gary), re-worked contracts (Steele & Hooker), and franchise tags (Pickens).<\/p>\n None of the numbers include the contracts for recently-signed Jonathan Bullard and Derion Kendrick along with soon-to-be re-signed Brandon Aubrey, so it\u2019s safe to assume that the Cowboys will top $110 million in guaranteed money handed out this year.<\/p>\n If we apply the same logic to all NFL teams by including all guaranteed money from<\/p>\n Franchise tagsRFA tendersAll players on re-worked contractsAll traded players<\/p>\n then we end up with the following 2026 Top 10 in guaranteed money spent on players signed or re-signed to the 2026 roster:<\/p>\n Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 The Cowboys didn\u2019t go overboard with total contract values, as the Spotrac and OTC numbers show. But neither did they sit still and do nothing. Does $106.7 million count as \u201cbusting the budget?\u201d I don\u2019t know. For a team that is very much focused on their cash spend year-in and year-out, it probably is. But because of the high rollers at the top of the table above, it\u2019s only slightly above the league average of $97.2 million.<\/p>\n The $106.7 million in guaranteed money handed out may come as a surprise given the relative paucity of headline-grabbing signings, but the disparity in spending on external versus internal free agents is nothing new for the Cowboys.<\/p>\n Lkek it or not, but the Cowboys have been trying to follow a specific business model for a while now, and that model is less about spending your money on someone else\u2019s free agents, and more about spending it on your own instead.<\/p>\n Free agency is as much about managing risk as anything. Ideally you invest your money where you know the risks are minimal, and that\u2019s for the players you know the best – your own players. What you want to avoid in free agency is tying up too much of your money, especially your guaranteed money, in risks that you can\u2019t control. There is absolutely nothing wrong with bringing in veteran players to help your team, as long as you don\u2019t do it with contracts that are potential cap killers if the player doesn\u2019t live up to your expectations, doesn\u2019t fit your scheme, brings some baggage with him that you don\u2019t know of, can\u2019t get along with your coaches, contracts the uptown-flu, or otherwise doesn\u2019t work out for some reason.<\/p>\n Next year, 2027 free agents like DE Will Anderson or WR Puca Nacua will be free agents and demand potentially cap-crippling free agency contracts and will again top the free agency wish list of many Cowboys fans, but the Cowboys will instead spend their money on re-signing players like George Pickens, DeMarvion Overshown, or Ryan Flournoy, and fill roster holes with mid-tier free agents.<\/p>\n But for that business model to work, you\u2019ve got to draft successfully.<\/p>\n 11 players drafted by the Cowboys since 2016 made the Pro Bowl while in Dallas (three more made the Pro Bowl after they left) two more made the Pro Bowl as college free agents (Kavontae Turpin and Brandon Aubrey). All but one of them (Micah Parsons) received contract extensions or were tendered in Dallas, as the Cowboys focused on retaining their top guys. And if they want to avoid spending big in free agency, and instead spend big on their own players, they\u2019ll have to continue drafting well, starting with the next draft in about four weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every year during free agency, there\u2019s almost no big-name free agent that isn\u2019t linked to the Cowboys at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5355,35269,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-849984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-dallas-cowboys-free-agency","9":"tag-dallas-cowboys-salary-cap","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116337086680125139","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849984","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=849984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Take newly re-signed Cowboys RB Javonte Williams. His three-year, $24 million contract (including a $6 million signing bonus) with $16 million of guaranteed money is essentially a two-year contract. The Cowboys will pay Williams $8.75 million in 2026 ($1.75 million base salary, $6 million signing bonus, $1 million roster bonus) and $7.25 million in 2027 ($6.25 million base salary, $1 million roster bonus). Combined, that\u2019s exactly the $16 million in guaranteed money the Cowboys owe him, they owe him nothing beyond that.<\/p>\n
\nPOS
\nspotrac
\nOTC
\nTotal Roster<\/p>\n
\nS
\n$22,000,000
\n$22,000,000
\n$22,000,000<\/p>\n
\nS
\n$3,500,000
\n$3,500,000
\n$3,500,000<\/p>\n
\nQB
\n$2,500,000
\n$2,500,000
\n$2,500,000<\/p>\n
\nC
\n$1,262,500
\n$1,262,500
\n$1,262,500<\/p>\n
\nCB
\n$1,500,000
\n$1,500,000
\n$1,500,000<\/p>\n
\nIDL
\n$500,000
\n$500,000
\n$500,000<\/p>\n
\nEDGE
\n$100,000
\n$100,000
\n$100,000<\/p>\n
\nDT
\nn.a.
\nn.a.
\nn.a.<\/p>\n
\nCB
\nn.a.
\nn.a.
\nn.a.<\/p>\n
\nRB
\n—
\n$16,000,000
\n$16,000,000<\/p>\n
\nEDGE
\n—
\n$2,000,000
\n$2,000,000<\/p>\n
\nWR
\n—
\n—
\n$27,298,000<\/p>\n
\nEDGE
\n—
\n—
\n$16,000,000<\/p>\n
\nRT
\n—
\n—
\n$10,500,000<\/p>\n
\nS
\n—
\n—
\n$3,500,000<\/p>\n
\nK
\n—
\n—
\n$0<\/p>\n
\nRG
\n—
\n—
\n$0<\/p>\n
\nCB
\n—
\n—
\n$0<\/p>\n
\nCB
\n—
\n—
\n$0<\/p>\n
\nCB
\n—
\n—
\n$0<\/p>\n
\nWR
\n—
\n—
\n$0<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0$31,362,500\u00a0
\n\u00a0$49,362,500\u00a0
\n\u00a0$106,660,500\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nTeam
\nG’teed Money in $M<\/p>\n
\nTitans
\n$222.4<\/p>\n
\nRaiders
\n$211.6<\/p>\n
\nCommanders
\n$195.1<\/p>\n
\nSeahawks
\n$160.8<\/p>\n
\nTexans
\n$158.6<\/p>\n
\nJets
\n$120.4<\/p>\n
\nCowboys
\n$106.7<\/p>\n
\nChargers
\n$103.9<\/p>\n
\nRams
\n$103.8<\/p>\n
\nPanthers
\n$103.5<\/p>\n