I equate the Cowboys salary cap management to a person living paycheck to paycheck. They can move money around year to year and get cap compliant (usually without too much effort), but they aren't saving (cap rollover) or giving themselves any savings (free agent flexibility)
Dallas restructured almost every contract available to them to restructure last year. And, for what? To franchise Spencer and bring in Durant and Will Allen?
Meanwhile, a team like Seattle, who has cap flexibility was able to bring in some key contributors at what were really bargain deals (Avril, Bennett)
What Dallas is doing allows them to, more or less, keep this core together, but this is an 8-8 core. So what is that really buying you? I understand it if you are a NE that is a perennial contender and have a big dollar contract for your franchise QB (who still have like $9 million in cap space). I don't understand it for an 8-8 team.
If this approach is so revolutionary and effective, why aren't other teams doing it?
Depending upon what happens with Ware (or potential restructures of Carr and Witten), they might make a little space for either free agency or a Dez extension, but not much else. Meanwhile, playoff teams are sitting with excess cap space up front without restructures. Who has the advantage for adding key pieces and improving their team?
I don't think Dallas is in cap hell by any means, but they are cap constrained. I think they'll be able to keep Dez and Tyron and probably get cap healthy in 2016/2017 with new money and moving on from Romo.