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The Dallas Cowboys do not utilize free agency to its fullest. If you have been paying attention over the course of the last decade and a half then you are well aware of this reality. The Cowboys gave a ton of money (relative to the time and market at the moment in question) to cornerback Brandon Carr during the 2012 offseason, and despite the fact that Carr was a serviceable player for the team, they have refused to get back into the adult pool ever since.
Many theories have been floated as to why. Some believe the Cowboys prefer to build through the NFL draft. Others offer that the team wants to hoard all of the money for themselves, although this is particularly ludicrous as the “money” involved is the team’s salary cap and not funds the group can pocket if left unused. Off-the-wall theories are that the team is stingy with cash, or that they simply do not have the liquid assets to make it work.
Whichever camp you plant your flag in, the common denominator is the agreement that free agency is a song the Cowboys do not care to know the words to.
“Their use of free agency is pretty absurd”
Jason Fitzgerald is one of the brightest NFL salary cap minds in the business. He wrote the book on it all, literally, so when he speaks on the front if is worth giving him attention.
Recently Fitzgerald took a gander at how much teams are involved in free agent spending. This was brought on for him because of comments from Baltimore Ravens general manager Eric DeCosta. DeCosta noted that he doesn’t put a ton of work into free agency given that the team doesn’t generally partake in it either.
The data that Fitzgerald uncovered is interesting to say the least. He examined players signed in March and April between the years of 2020 and 2025. He established $2M as a base qualifier to filter out (in his estimation) players signing for the veteran minimum, and the players signed had to be new additions to the team. This is important and helpful context.
In this span of time the Cowboys:
- Signed 16 overall players
- With an APY (Average Per Year) of $54,750,000
- And an average per player of $3,421,875
The Ravens do trail the Cowboys in terms of number of players signed as they have 11. In fact, there are a handful of teams who have south of 16 so if you want to frame things that way then Dallas doesn’t look so bad.
Unfortunately there are other ways to look at this information. The Cowboys rank last in the NFL in terms of average per year and (obviously not shockingly) average per player. Consider that the Green Bay Packers have only nine signings and still outrank Dallas in those areas.
Fitzgerald ended his analysis with a note on the Cowboys, and it wasn’t exactly kind.
That then brings me to the Dallas Cowboys. Their use of free agency is pretty absurd. They haven’t had any type of playoff success and have been very inconsistent from season to season. They rank 25th in the NFL with 16 signings but have under less than $55 million in contracts. That is about $20 million less than the next closest team. They spend just $3.4 million per player which is absurd. That is less than the Texans who basically filled an entire years roster with free agent signings.
This subject has been a point of discussion and debate among Cowboys fans for a long time now. Generally speaking, no one is arguing for Dallas to climb to the very top of this list. The argument is for the Cowboys to simply climb on it in general.
You shouldn’t treat free agency like a collection of credit cards. There is a responsibility required to be smart about it all. You also shouldn’t completely forego free agency as an avenue of roster construction. It is pretty “absurd” to do so.