This is the biggest surprise of Dallas Cowboys free agency

Every year during free agency, there’s almost no big-name free agent that isn’t linked to the Cowboys at some point. This year, there was almost no free agent pass rusher or linebacker the Cowboys weren’t linked to, the more expensive the better.

And while we collectively like to point our fingers at Big Media and admonish them for writing stories linking premier free agents to the Cowboys, some of the worst offenders are Cowboys fans themselves who flood comment boards, blogs, and social media with ideas about which players the Cowboys should acquire – only to then be disappointed when the Cowboys don’t sign them.

So while the calls for Maxx Crosby, Trey Hendrickson, Jaelen Phillips, Devin Lloyd, Nakobe Dean, Quay Walker, and many others went unheeded, the Cowboys quietly went about their business and spent over $100 million on free agents in March. That’s right, over $100 million!

How can that be, the interested reader wants to know, doesn’t spotrac.com show the Cowboys with a meagre $52.7 (25th in the NFL) in free agency contract value, and doesn’t OverTheCap.com also show the Cowboys ranked 25th, but with $76.7 million in free agency spend? And now we’re saying over $100 million?

Well, surprisingly, all three can be true at the same time.

To understand what’s going on, we need to recognize that contract value is just one part of the equation in free agency. In free agency, headlines blasting out contract values are the norm, but the value of an NFL contract is not in the total contract dollars or in the length of the contract.

What really matters in any NFL contract is the amount of guaranteed money. Teams owe their newly-signed free agents only the guaranteed portion of their contracts, and nothing more. And when that guaranteed portion is used up, it often signals the end of that player’s tenure with his new team.

Take newly re-signed Cowboys RB Javonte Williams. His three-year, $24 million contract (including a $6 million signing bonus) with $16 million of guaranteed money is essentially a two-year contract. The Cowboys will pay Williams $8.75 million in 2026 ($1.75 million base salary, $6 million signing bonus, $1 million roster bonus) and $7.25 million in 2027 ($6.25 million base salary, $1 million roster bonus). Combined, that’s exactly the $16 million in guaranteed money the Cowboys owe him, they owe him nothing beyond that.

So how does this square with what spotrac and OTC are showing? For one thing, the values I quoted above were for total contract values. In terms of guaranteed money, spotrac shows the Cowboys with $31.4 million (26th) and OTC has the Cowboys with $49.2 million (23rd), with the main difference being which players each site does and does not include.

Here’s an overview of the players the Cowboys have signed so far this year, along with the contract terms that have become available so far.

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Cowboys guaranteed money by player, 2026

Player

POS

spotrac

OTC

Total Roster

Jalen Thompson

$22,000,000

P.J. Locke

$3,500,000

Sam Howell

$2,500,000

Matt Hennessy

$1,262,500

Cobie Durant

$1,500,000

Otito Ogbonnia

IDL

$500,000

Tyrus Wheat

EDGE

$100,000

Jonathan Bullard

n.a.

Derion Kendrick

n.a.

Javonte Williams

—

$16,000,000

Sam Williams

EDGE

—

$2,000,000

George Pickens

—

$27,298,000

Rashan Gary

EDGE

—

$16,000,000

Terence Steele

—

$10,500,000

Malik Hooker

—

$3,500,000

Brandon Aubrey

—

T.J. Bass

—

Corey Ballentine

—

Josh Butler

—

Reddy Steward

—

Jonathan Mingo

—

Grand Totals

$31,362,500

$49,362,500

$106,660,500

Spotrac does not include players re-signed from a team’s own roster in their tally, OTC does, but doesn’t include trades (Gary), re-worked contracts (Steele & Hooker), and franchise tags (Pickens).

None of the numbers include the contracts for recently-signed Jonathan Bullard and Derion Kendrick along with soon-to-be re-signed Brandon Aubrey, so it’s safe to assume that the Cowboys will top $110 million in guaranteed money handed out this year.

If we apply the same logic to all NFL teams by including all guaranteed money from

All players on re-worked contracts

then we end up with the following 2026 Top 10 in guaranteed money spent on players signed or re-signed to the 2026 roster:

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Rank

Team

G’teed Money in $M

Titans

$222.4

Raiders

$211.6

Commanders

$195.1

Seahawks

$160.8

Texans

$158.6

Jets

$120.4

Cowboys

$106.7

Chargers

$103.9

Rams

$103.8

Panthers

$103.5

The Cowboys didn’t go overboard with total contract values, as the Spotrac and OTC numbers show. But neither did they sit still and do nothing. Does $106.7 million count as “busting the budget?” I don’t know. For a team that is very much focused on their cash spend year-in and year-out, it probably is. But because of the high rollers at the top of the table above, it’s only slightly above the league average of $97.2 million.

The $106.7 million in guaranteed money handed out may come as a surprise given the relative paucity of headline-grabbing signings, but the disparity in spending on external versus internal free agents is nothing new for the Cowboys.

Lkek it or not, but the Cowboys have been trying to follow a specific business model for a while now, and that model is less about spending your money on someone else’s free agents, and more about spending it on your own instead.

Free agency is as much about managing risk as anything. Ideally you invest your money where you know the risks are minimal, and that’s for the players you know the best – your own players. What you want to avoid in free agency is tying up too much of your money, especially your guaranteed money, in risks that you can’t control. There is absolutely nothing wrong with bringing in veteran players to help your team, as long as you don’t do it with contracts that are potential cap killers if the player doesn’t live up to your expectations, doesn’t fit your scheme, brings some baggage with him that you don’t know of, can’t get along with your coaches, contracts the uptown-flu, or otherwise doesn’t work out for some reason.

Next year, 2027 free agents like DE Will Anderson or WR Puca Nacua will be free agents and demand potentially cap-crippling free agency contracts and will again top the free agency wish list of many Cowboys fans, but the Cowboys will instead spend their money on re-signing players like George Pickens, DeMarvion Overshown, or Ryan Flournoy, and fill roster holes with mid-tier free agents.

But for that business model to work, you’ve got to draft successfully.

11 players drafted by the Cowboys since 2016 made the Pro Bowl while in Dallas (three more made the Pro Bowl after they left) two more made the Pro Bowl as college free agents (Kavontae Turpin and Brandon Aubrey). All but one of them (Micah Parsons) received contract extensions or were tendered in Dallas, as the Cowboys focused on retaining their top guys. And if they want to avoid spending big in free agency, and instead spend big on their own players, they’ll have to continue drafting well, starting with the next draft in about four weeks.

This is the biggest surprise of Dallas Cowboys free agency

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