The Cowboys have plenty of key contributors set to hit the open market in March.
Since 2013, 31 of 32 NFL franchises have signed at least one outside free agent to a deal worth at least $30M in total value. The one team that hasn’t, ranked by Forbes as 2024’s most valuable sports franchise in the world, is our very own Dallas Cowboys.
It’s almost hard to believe how little the Cowboys have spent on outside free agents in the past 10-plus years. You’d have to go all the way back to 2014, when they signed defensive tackle Henry Melton, to find the last time Dallas signed a player from another team to a deal totaling over $20M.
While the Cowboys have been by far the most inactive franchise in free agency in the last decade, one thing they have done well is retain their own players set to hit the open market. The 2022 and 2023 offseasons are perfect examples of this. In 2022, Dallas brought back Jayron Kearse, Dorance Armstrong, and Leighton Vander Esch, who played significant roles on the team the prior season. In 2023, they followed the same model, retaining Donovan Wilson, Dante Fowler Jr., Jonathan Hankins, and Vander Esch for the second straight year.
Dallas had built themselves a reputation that while they may not spend nearly anything on outside free agents, if they wanted to keep a player they would do what it takes to retain their own talent and not let contributing players walk away. Unfortunately, the Cowboys completely abandoned that strategy last offseason.
After the 2023 season, Dallas had seven significant contributors set to hit free agency. Many figured the Cowboys would follow their recent strategy of retaining their own key contributors and bring back at least three or four members of the group set to hit the open market. Instead, the Cowboys went in a completely different direction, letting all seven players sign with other teams.
Dorance Armstrong, Tyler Biadasz, Dante Fowler Jr., Stephon Gilmore, Jonathan Hankins, Tyron Smith, and Tony Pollard all left the Cowboys in free agency, with none signing a deal totaling over $11M in AAV. The move to let all of this group walk turned out to bite the Cowboys in a big way during the 2024 season, as injuries completely exposed their lack of roster depth, leading to a highly disappointing year.
If Jerry Jones and Dallas’ front office could go back to March of 2024, they’d likely make a different decision and bring back at least two or three players from the above group that they let depart. While they can’t return and change the past, they can learn from their mistakes and take a different path this spring.
Like last offseason, Dallas has some key contributors set to hit the open market this March. Six starters from the 2024 team, Brandin Cooks, Rico Dowdle, Eric Kendricks, DeMarcus Lawrence, Jourdan Lewis, and Osa Odighizuwa, are all upcoming free agents and available to sign with another team on March 10th.
While the Cowboys may be unable to retain all six, they have more than enough cap space and flexibility to bring back a good portion of the group. Three of those players, Rico Dowdle, Jourdan Lewis, and Osa Odighizuwa, are coming off career-years and should be top priorities for the Cowboys to retain. If Dallas lets those three walk in free agency, unless they buck a more than 10-year trend and spend on outside talent, it’s hard to see a way in which the Cowboys will form a better team in 2025 than what we saw on the field this season.
In years past, the Cowboys needed to spend big on outside free agents to get their team over the hump. This offseason, that is not the case. The one thing Dallas does need to do in free agency is add players from other organizations to beef up their roster depth. The Cowboys could benefit from signing three or four league-average players to deals worth $4-5M in AAV to sure up some weak spots and give themselves some much-needed depth at some of their more top-heavy position groups.
The Cowboys can have a successful offseason if they prioritize retaining their own talent and use free agency as a way to regain some of the depth they lost last spring. If Dallas were to re-sign Dowdle, Kendricks, Lewis, and Odighizuwa, paired with retaining three of their non-starter free agents in Chauncey Golston, Brock Hoffman, and KaVontae Turpin, that would be an extremely successful start to the offseason.
Pair retaining that group with adding three or fourth depth players in free agency and selecting some offensive firepower early in the 2025 NFL Draft, the Cowboys could look like a playoff team again next fall.
The ball is entirely in the Cowboys’ court regarding how this offseason will turn out. Will they see the error in their ways from last spring and learn from their mistakes? If they don’t, it’s hard to see a way in which we see a better on-field product from this team next season.
