Almost 3 months later Stephen Jones’ words about free agency ring hollow

The day was April 19th. The Dallas Cowboys, like the other 31 NFL teams, were on the precipice of beginning the 2022 NFL Draft. In the lead-up to the draft the team’s EVP Stephen Jones appeared on 105.3 The Fan to discuss a variety of things. At the time the Cowboys had only signed three external free agents (James Washington, Dante Fowler Jr., and Ryan Nall) and many were wondering why there weren’t more names on that list.

While the primary subject of Stephen’s appearance was the draft, he did also mention free agency and did so with a bit of a promise.

Here we sit, almost three months later, and we’ve barely seen any activity.

Almost three months later Stephen Jones’ words about the Dallas Cowboys and free agency ring hollow

So what exactly did he say about free agency? He said that the Dallas Cowboys were “not done” in free agency.

Since Stephen said this the Dallas Cowboys have signed two veteran free agents and both of those moves became official just this past Friday in kicker Lirim Hajrullahu (who was on the team last year so it wasn’t exactly a totally new thing) and linebacker Christian Sam.

The list of free agents who have been signed by NFL teams since then is not exactly full of future busts in Canton, Ohio, but Stephen did make the statement. Never mind the fact that Dallas did not exactly draft the best players on the board as noted by their own public leaking of said board.

At present time the Cowboys have the third-most salary cap space in the NFL which means they have more than enough room to bring in new players. They have chosen not to pursue any big names this offseason and instead focused on retaining their own by bringing back Michael Gallup, placing the franchise tag on Dalton Schultz, and making sure that they did not lose DeMarcus Lawrence, but most NFL minds agree that the roster today is weaker than it was when the season ended.

The Cowboys have had every opportunity to improve their roster by way of free agency and Stephen Jones explicitly told the fan base that they would. Just because time has passed does not mean that people have forgotten and here we sit just a few weeks away from training camp beginning with the team waiting to strike gold in some way, shape, or form.

The team’s official announcement of the Hajrullahu and Sam signings there was a note that they worked out a few free agents. But we are hardly at a point where Stephen has made good on his word.