{"id":496281,"date":"2026-02-28T21:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T21:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/496281\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T21:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T21:15:08","slug":"cowboys-will-clear-plenty-of-cap-room-by-kicking-the-can-on-big-contracts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/496281\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowboys will clear plenty of cap room, by kicking the can on big contracts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before the Cowboys can \u201cbust the budget<\/a>,\u201d they\u2019ll need to balance the books. And there\u2019s an easy way to do it.<\/p>\n

Contained in almost every multi-year veteran contract is a clause that gives the team the ability to perform an automatic restructuring, converting the current year\u2019s compensation package into a bonus, with the cap charge spread over multiple years.<\/p>\n

Via Todd Archer of ESPN.com, the Cowboys will create $66 million in 2026 cap space<\/a> by performing an automatic restructuring of quarterback Dak Prescott\u2019s, receiver CeeDee Lamb\u2019s, and guard Tyler Smith\u2019s contracts.<\/p>\n

The money doesn\u2019t disappear. It moves to future cap years, where the $66 million in cap dollars will have a smaller relative impact, given that the salary cap increases each and every year.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s how most teams create spending money for the upcoming effort to sign new players. It\u2019s a Band-Aid that gets applied annually. For many players, it leads to a significant cap hit once the player is traded or released, or when he retires.<\/p>\n

Regardless, that\u2019s how it\u2019s done. Most if not every team does it. It\u2019s one of the realities of opting not to pay as you go, absorbing lower cap numbers in the early years of the deal.<\/p>\n

The Cowboys won\u2019t have that luxury with receiver George Pickens unless his franchise tender is replaced with a long-term deal. Until then, he\u2019ll count for $27.298 million against the 2028 cap \u2014 a huge increase over his $3.65 million salary and cap number in 2025.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the Cowboys need cap space if they\u2019re going to spend in free agency. The Prescott, Lamb, and Smith restructurings are the easiest way to create plenty of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before the Cowboys can \u201cbust the budget,\u201d they\u2019ll need to balance the books. And there\u2019s an easy way…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-496281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}