There’s a reason you’re watching Eagles and not Cowboys in the playoffs

As Cowboys fans are forced to watch the Eagles in the playoffs once again — at least for one afternoon as they host San Francisco at 3:30 p.m. Sunday — let‘s put a stop to the notion that Dallas is in position to replace Philadelphia atop the NFC East with a couple of easy moves this offseason.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has spoken a number of times on this topic this season and again on Wednesday in what I guess was a news conference to announce that Matt Eberflus was not the real problem in 2025 but his parking pass at The Star has been taken away from him anyway. Regardless, Jones continues to say the team is now positioned so well under the salary cap that if big moves are required, the team is equipped to engineer them.

We know that defense is where Dallas has to focus on fixing matters. And yet the club (and its fans) badly want George Pickens re-signed to continue the 1-2 punch at wide receiver alongside CeeDee Lamb that made the Cowboys‘ offense go this season. Oh, and along with that, Javonte Williams, yeah it would be great to have him in the backfield one more time, too.

After all, when you watch the Eagles — uneven as their offense was at times this year — they are the defending Super Bowl champs until someone beats them and they come at you with a couple of Pro Bowl quality wide receivers, last year’s leading rusher and a Super Bowl MVP at quarterback.

Cowboys

Now, let’s look at how Howie Roseman, who carries a general manager title without actually owning the franchise (imagine such a thing), has positioned the Eagles for 2026 and a third straight NFC East title and a sixth straight trip to the playoffs. Next season’s cap hits for the four skilled position players look like this: Jalen Hurts, $31.9 million; Saquon Barkley, $9.8 million; A.J. Brown, $23.4 million; DeVonta Smith, $10.7 million.

That‘s $75.8 million for four veteran players, none of them on rookie contracts.

Here’s how the “positioned to strike” Cowboys look: Dak Prescott, $74 million. Whoa, let’s hit the pause on the remote here. The estimate for Dak’s cap hit is somehow the equal of all four Eagles star players? Yes, but the Cowboys can and will do a revision that will knock a chunk off that figure by converting base salary to bonus money. Let’s go ahead and slice it in half (although I don’t honestly believe the Cowboys can get it that low) and call it $37 million, just for Jones’ sake.

Now you’ve got Lamb at $38.6 million. Whoa, pause it again. We are all the way back up to that Eagles’ $75 million figure, even after giving the Cowboys a considerable break on Dak’s restructure, and we’ve still got two players to go? Well, maybe they can play around with his money, too, and knock off another $5 million. Even with that, the cost of the franchise tag for wide receiver is estimated to be at $28 million. If the Cowboys sign Pickens to a long-term deal, which would guarantee him more than $28 million per year, they can lower the cap figure by having some fun with math that we all enjoy. That does entail the risk of giving Pickens a lot more freedom for those deconstructive moments that were rare in 2025 when he was on a one-year deal but troubling enough to cause Pittsburgh to dump their best receiver last spring for a second-day draft pick.

And we haven’t even gotten to poor Javonte. The man worked his tail off for $3.5 million this season, rushing for 1,200 yards and 11 touchdowns in 16 games. Running backs work cheap, but he will cost at least twice that much to retain. Are the Cowboys going to pay this Big Four, if you will, in the range of $110 million-$120 million in cap money in 2026? That puts them $45 million behind the Eagles before they start building the rest of the team which, by the way, is where they need considerable help.

The funny thing here is that if you take Dak’s passer rating this season (which was good, not great, at 10th overall) along with Pickens’ and Javonte’s yards, only one playoff team — the Rams with Matthew Stafford, Puka Nakua and Kyren Williams — can match those totals. This is not how winning teams are built.

But all 14 postseason teams rank higher than Dallas in total defense (30th), scoring defense (32nd), passing yards allowed (32nd) and turnover margin (T-29th). Although there was this notion that Quinnen Williams provided an instant fix, and Jones certainly talked up Williams and Kenny Clark, who came in the Micah Parsons trade, as big prizes, only Chicago among playoff teams gave up more rushing yards than the Cowboys (23rd).

The truth is that the Cowboys finished as close to New York in the standings as they were to Philadelphia. And if you want to know the difference between the Cowboys and Commanders — who had an abysmal injury-riddled season after going to the NFC title game and are currently searching for two new coordinators, not just one — it was the two head-to-head matchups. Dallas swept the series (Jayden Daniels played barely two of the eight quarters). In the other 15 games, Washington was 5-10 and Dallas was 5-9-1.

Same. Teams.

The Cowboys might manage to run it back with the seventh-best scoring offense one more time next year. But if they do, it’s going to take more than salary cap trickery to put this defense and this team on a playoff level in 2026.

Commanders are promoting Carrollton’s David Blough to offensive coordinator, per report