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The Dallas Cowboys have the day off on Saturday but that hardly means that no business is happening at The Star in Frisco. If there is anything that we have learned about this team over the course of the last six or seven months it’s that they are no longer predictable in the way that we once thought. As a result of our super awesome and incredible and totally needed new way of life new normal, we now exist in a reality where moves made by the team are surprising and seemingly tied to a greater purpose.
This brings us to what happened on Saturday morning. The Cowboys, who lost Gerald McCoy earlier in the week for what it’s worth, created salary cap space. A notable amount.
The Cowboys have cleared $6.675M of salary cap space through Tyron Smith’s contract
It seems like forever ago, but the deal that Tyron Smith signed with the Cowboys as his rookie contract neared its end continues to pay off for the team. If there was ever a can to kick down the road his contract is the prime example.
Saturday morning brought the news that the Cowboys cleared $6.675M in salary cap space by converting $8.9M of Tyron Smith’s base salary into a signing bonus. Not only does this move suggest a strong belief in Smith, as ESPN’s Todd Archer notes, but it does create space in the here and now.
Cowboys restructured Smith's contract in 2015-17, didn't in 2018-19. Even though he's missed three games in each of the last four season, they feel good about him going forward or they would have been less likely to do this. https://t.co/T6Ob7SYYRF
— Todd Archer (@toddarcher) August 22, 2020
Obviously next year’s salary cap is expected to shrink as a result of the financial impact that Covid-19 has had on the world. The Cowboys do not have a long-term deal in place with Dak Prescott and will likely need a lot of time to strike one, especially if he has a successful season, so they might have to tag him, at the very least temporarily, next offseason. While that is a last-resort type thing it must be accounted for, literally.
Of course, it is possible that the Cowboys are preparing to make a move with the space that they have generated in the here and now. There is thought that maybe they would like to bring in a defensive tackle after having lost McCoy, or perhaps they have their eyes set somewhere else.
What do you think?