FRISCO, Texas — The 2024 season will eternally be marked as the "all in" season for and by the Dallas Cowboys, a phrase that went viral last spring following an interview with owner and general manager Jerry Jones prior to the front office clarifying its stance on what that phrase means to them.
As explained by Jones, it meant extending Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb, and those two missions were eventually accomplished, though not without some rough waters — outside free agency being mostly nonexistent, save for the successful poaching of Eric Kendricks.
But with Brian Schottenheimer and his extremely promising coaching staff needing a revamped roster that features 22 unrestricted in-house free agents (featuring some headline names), unable to keep them all, might the Cowboys change their approach to mirror more aggressive teams like, potentially, the Philadelphia Eagles, who are notoriously aggressive in free agency and who just finished their second Super Bowl appearance in three seasons?
"Yeah, I think you certainly look at that," said executive vice president of player personnel Stephen Jones from Schottenheimer's inaugural press conference. "I think you look at your competitors in your conference and what it's going to take to have success, whether that's a 49er team or whether that's an Eagles team."
Both the Cowboys and the 49ers were ravaged by injury last season, a fact not lost on Jones, who wants to do a better job of marrying free agency with the NFL draft.
"Obviously, [in 2024], we were counting on playing those [young] guys right away and they had to jump right in and, as the injuries came, more and more had to jump in," Jones said. "But I think the bigger thing here is, which has been our goal in the past, where can we in free agency take care of some core needs so that, when the draft comes, you are able to take the best player on the board?"
With so many question marks at key positions heading into the month of March — e.g., running back, wide receiver (behind CeeDee Lamb), cornerback depth, linebacker depth, defensive line depth, etc. — it will truly require the Cowboys to likely be far busier in free agency than this time last year.
There will be triggers they can pull to instantly free up tens of millions in cap space, such as a likely restructure on the shiny new contract with former All-Pro quarterback Dak Prescott, one that would generate more than $37 million in cap space. Doing the same with CeeDee Lamb's deal would add another $20 million in savings, and extending Micah Parsons this year would drop another $18 million in savings on the table for 2025, so forth and so on.
That's a combined $75 million in only three moves, not to mention the looming increase in the league-wide cap in a few weeks over last year's ceiling, adding several million more to the wallet.
The money will be there, but will the spending?
"You'd look at the blueprints [of teams like the Eagles]," said Jones. "Everybody does it differently. Kansas City's doing a great job bringing young guys along and those types of things. And a team like Philadelphia, certainly you look at the way they're doing it, where they went out and did some things with some veteran players. You have to take a look at that and then you have to find exactly what fits your core, your DNA, with our players and what we have; and what gives us the best chance to compete against.
"Certainly, you start with your division — the Eagles, the Commanders and the Giants. Then you stretch that out, and what does it take to beat the 49ers or to beat the Rams? Those are all things that come in the mix."
Legal tampering officially begins on March 10, and that's when Schottenheimer will get his first real glimpse at what the approach toward free agency will look like in his first season as not only head coach of the Cowboys, but as an NFL head coach, period.
To call this offseason "pivotal" would be a gargantuan undersell, and it's clearly time for Dallas to start weaponizing parts of their opponents' approach against them.
And the Cowboys are readily admitting as much.
Time will tell what that looks like, though.
