INDIANAPOLIS – With a $90 million cap hit coming in the 2025 offseason from Dak Prescott's contract, the Cowboys will have to be selective in how they decide to go building the rest of the quarterback room. COO/co-owner Stephen Jones said on Monday that bringing in a younger quarterback is a preference, and drafting one is on the table in the upcoming 2025 NFL draft.
"We will evaluate the whole situation," Jones said. "You're always wanting to have a young guy coming, that's always a preference, and certainly that's something we'll look at in the draft is to see if there's a young guy to start bringing along."
Aside from Prescott, Will Grier is the only quarterback on the roster after he signed an extension following the season. Both Cooper Rush and Trey Lance enter the 2025 offseason as unrestricted free agents.
When Prescott's hamstring injury kept him sidelined following Week 9, it was Cooper Rush who handled a majority of the quarterbacking duties from there, starting the next eight games for Dallas and amassing a 4-4 record in the process.
In the Cowboys' final game of the season, it was Trey Lance who got the nod to start against the Washington Commanders, his first start for the Cowboys after they traded a 2024 fourth-round pick to the San Francisco 49ers for him in 2023. The team had a plan for Lance when they traded for him, but this might be the end of the road between both parties.
"We were focused on Trey [Lance] there when we traded for him and he was our young guy if you will, that we were bringing along," Jones said. "But all of those are things that we will start to evaluate with this draft, coach Schottenheimer, coach [Steve] Shimko, and Clayton [Adams] and that group, what's available out there, what's going to be in the draft and make the best decision in terms of what we're going to have behind Dak."
That decision will surround the entire roster, as Jones described that the team will be taking a “selectively aggressive” approach to free agency in the 2025 offseason, and are expecting that approach to lead into immediate success.
"We're going to look at everything we can, we're going to be selectively aggressive," Jones said. "There's things in this league, you have certain amount of resources they allow you to have and we will look at that, but we're going to try to improve our football team, not try, we're going to improve our football team and we expect to have success next year."
If the Cowboys do decide to draft a quarterback come April, it'll be the first time the team has selected a quarterback since taking Ben DiNucci in the seventh round of the 2020 NFL draft. DiNucci and Mike White are the only two quarterbacks to be drafted by the Cowboys since they took Prescott in the fourth round of the 2016 NFL draft.
The NFL combine will officially begin tomorrow, giving the Cowboys an opportunity to get their eyes on some of the quarterbacks in this class. For some potential names to watch at the position and other players to keep an eye on as it pertains to the Cowboys throughout the week, click here.
