Why The Cowboys Don't Cry About The Cap
IRVING, Texas (105.3 THE FAN) – It should be unlawful for ESPN to yell "Salary-Cap Fire'' in a crowded Cowboys theater.
But the network does so on an almost daily basis during every Dallas Cowboys offseason – maybe because mentioning the Cowboys moves the ratings needle or maybe because somebody in Bristol truly does not understand how the NFL's salary cap works.
But for whatever reason, the Cowboys are constantly immersed in this "controversy'' where financial acumen and talent evaluation clash…
Or do they?
The NFL's 2014 salary cap expected to be about $130 million. (Or $132 mil. Or $133 mil. Higher the better, if you are the Cowboys.) Various reports (from ESPN and elsewhere) have placed Dallas in a fiscal danger zone because of the cap, screaming that the Cowboys are "$20 million over the cap'' and my-oh-my whatever shall they do?
The panic created by the reports leads to the sincere-but-naïve question so often posed:
"Will the Cowboys get under the cap?''
They will indeed, and they will do so by 3 p.m. on March 11 – because that's the law. And they will do so easily, with three flicks of a ballpoint pen.
The Cowboys would need to trim close to $20 million from their cap by March 11, and executive vice president Stephen Jones said the club has various paths to do the job.
The contract given Tony Romo was structured in a way to have a switch flipped that will save Dallas cap room. That represents a "delay'' tactic that is similar to putting money on a credit card, and for a 33-year-old, it's imperfect. But the contracts for Sean Lee and Orlando Scandrick have similar "switches'' that will be flipped. And they are young enough that the moving of their money comes with few pitfalls.
When Dallas executes those three ballpoint-pen moves, guess how much the club saves?
Close to $20 million – pretty much exactly the amount it needs to save.
They can do something with the contracts for Jason Witten and Brandan Carr (though they would be delay tactics) that get them $8 million more in room. Depending on how they handle DeMarcus Ware's negotiations, they can create another $7.5 million of room.
salary-cap space. A June 1 release of Miles Austin means another $5.5 million of room. Releases of bit players like Justin Durant, Phil Costa and Jermey Parnell equal another $4 million.
There are three games being played here.
One game is assembling a football team with talent.
The second game is doing so while fitting it all under the $130 million lid.
And the third game? The constant whining of those who either view, or pretend to view, the NFL salary cap as a Cowboys-tormenting boogie man, a devil demanding his due, a fire in a crowded theater.
(©2014 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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