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America’s Team has been uncharacteristically overlooked this spring
By Robert Mays 3h ago
The Dallas Cowboys are impossible to avoid. In good times and bad, Jerry Jones’ team seems to be everywhere. It doesn’t matter if they’re winning the NFC East or picking in the top 10. Cowboys discourse still slithers its way into your average SportsCenter rundown, any time of the year.
That ubiquity is what has made this such a strange spring in Dallas. Because over the past couple of months, it just doesn’t feel like we’ve heard much about a team that’s typically a fixture in our lives.
There’s probably a reason for that. Dak Prescott debates dominated the news cycle for long stretches of the past year, with factions on both sides arguing about whether the Cowboys’ quarterback deserved the top-of-market mega-extension his representatives were reportedly asking for. After Prescott finally signed his four-year, $160 million deal — with a staggering $126 million guaranteed — in early March, the drama in Big D had all but evaporated. With Prescott paid and several other second-contract stars still on the roster, Dallas didn’t have much financial wiggle room in a year where the cap had fallen to $185 million. The Cowboys, who’ve been fairly cautious with free agency under normal circumstances, were mostly set with roster moves. Even their first-round pick in this year’s draft, Micah Parsons, failed to create much buzz. Taking an off-ball linebacker 12th overall will do that. Since the Prescott extension, the biggest story out of Dallas has been Julio Jones wearing a Cowboys hoodie and then saying with gusto that he had no interest in playing for the franchise.
Superstars like Jones, Aaron Rodgers, and others have owned the NFL conversation in recent weeks, but even with all the other stories swirling, the Cowboys have taken an unfamiliar backseat — in terms of both attention and expectations — compared to last season. Last summer, BetMGM set the over/under for Cowboys wins at 9.5. Among NFC teams, only the Saints, 49ers, and Bucs had a higher total. By Labor Day, so many people had bet the Cowboys’ over that books were begging teams to bet the other side (the under had ballooned all the way to +135). In August of last year, ESPN ranked Dallas eighth in its preseason power rankings. Several writers (including this one) predicted the Cowboys to not only win the NFC East but to compete for the No. 1 overall seed in the conference. We all know what happened next.
After a 1-3 start full of explosive offense and disastrous defense, Prescott suffered a compound fracture in his right ankle against the Giants in early October, and an Andy Dalton-led Cowboys team faded into obscurity. Dallas finished head coach Mike McCarthy’s first season with a 6-10 record, and those disappointing results have informed the projections for this year’s version. Those same ESPN preseason power rankings have the Cowboys ranked 16th. The Athletic’s Sheil Kapadia has Dallas at No. 17. Some pundits believe the Cowboys might be the third best team in their own division. So, with OTAs just getting underway, this seems like an opportune time to take stock of America’s Team. In the wake of Prescott’s extension, and heading into Year 2 of McCarthy’s tenure, what are the Cowboys?
This probably goes without saying, but Prescott’s extension signals the dawn of a new era in Dallas. Prescott earned more than $31 million playing on the franchise tag last season, but with their QB carrying cap hits of $33 million, $44 million, and $47 million starting in 2022, the Cowboys’ days of enjoying an excellent QB on a dirt-cheap deal are officially over for good.
It’s hard not to lament what could have been for Dallas over the lifespan of Prescott’s rookie contract . In 2018, for example, Prescott carried a cap hit of $725,848 — about 51 times less than Jimmy Garoppolo cost the 49ers that season. The Cowboys had a high-level quarterback making about $30,000 less than Cody Kessler but fielded an offense that ranked 24th in offensive DVOA. Dallas swapped out offensive coordinator Scott Linehan for Kellen Moore and fielded an elite offense in 2019, but the damage of Jason Garrett’s final years in Dallas had already been done.
For a variety of reasons, circumstances in Dallas have dramatically shifted since the early days of Prescott’s rookie deal. Prescott’s own contract is a significant reason for that, but he’s far from the only Cowboys star who’s gotten paid. Offensive linemen Tyron Smith, Zack Martin, and La’el Collins are all on sizable veteran deals. Ezekiel Elliott’s $13.7 million cap hit this fall is the highest in the league among running backs. He’ll cost Dallas about two and a half times as much as Austin Ekeler — who has the seventh highest cap hit at the position — will cost the Chargers in 2021. At $22 million, Amari Cooper has the second highest cap hit in the league among WRs. Luckily for Dallas, CeeDee Lamb and Michael Gallup are set to make less than $6 million combined on their rookie deals this fall, giving the Cowboys one of the league’s best three-receiver sets while ranking sixth in 2021 cap spending at the position ($36.6 million).
In total, Dallas (at $125.6 million) is projected to have the second most expensive offense in the NFL in 2021, just behind the Browns ($141.8 million). That’s not a problem as long as your offense is putting up truly elite numbers, which the Prescott-led Cowboys have shown they’re more than capable of doing. Through five games last season, Prescott was on a historic pace as a passer. He was on track to throw for nearly 6,000 yards as the Cowboys offense tried to keep up in shootout after shootout. Ridiculous volume contributed to those numbers (Prescott was throwing about 50 passes per game over the first month of the season), but if we dig into the underlying efficiency numbers, there are some encouraging signs.
Among QBs with at least 100 attempts last season, Prescott ranked 11th in expected points added per drop back, according to TruMedia. That may not seem all that impressive, considering the Cowboys’ gaudy passing numbers. But sacks cost Prescott an average of .118 EPA per drop back last year, which would have trailed only Carson Wentz for the league lead over the course of an entire season. Remove the sacks, and the numbers paint a rosier picture. Through five games, Prescott was averaging about .27 passing EPA per drop back. That would’ve been good for sixth in the NFL over the entire season.
That may seem like a cheap way to inflate Prescott’s numbers, but there’s good reason to believe that the Cowboys will have better pass protection this fall. Collins, who missed all of last season with hip troubles, is healthy and has returned to practice at right tackle. Injuries have been a consistent problem for Smith over the years, but after signing swing tackle Ty Nseke in free agency and drafting Josh Ball in the fourth round, Dallas is better insulated against injuries at tackle than it’s been in years. The Cowboys’ line isn’t the rock-solid unit across the board that it was early in Prescott’s career (left guard Connor Williams, who’s projected as a starter, was a consistent culprit in the protection issues early last season), but the group should still be better and healthier than it was in 2020.
Based on what Dallas has shown under offensive coordinator Kellen Moore over the past two seasons, including a unit that finished second in DVOA in 2019, a healthy Cowboys team likely finishes as a very good offense most of the time. On its own, that should be enough to make Dallas a contender in the NFC East and potentially relevant in the broader NFC picture. The more optimistic end of the Cowboys’ range of outcomes hinges on what happens with their defense, and that picture is considerably more muddled.
The 2020 Cowboys defense wasn’t as putrid as you probably think it was. In Prescott’s five starts last year, Dallas ranked 26th in EPA/play on defense, and each game seemed to include two or three mind-numbing mistakes. By the end of the season, though, coordinator Mike Nolan’s group had made a modest improvement from “constantly embarrassing” to “not very good.” The Cowboys ranked 13th in EPA/play from Weeks 6-17 and finished 20th in weighted defensive DVOA, but that bump wasn’t enough to save Nolan’s job.
Nolan was replaced by former Falcons head coach Dan Quinn, whose defenses in Atlanta were…defenses, I guess. Rarely awful but never great, the Falcons’ defense actually improved after interim coach Raheem Morris took over last year. Through Quinn’s five games, the Falcons ranked 30th in EPA/play on defense. Over their final 11 games, Atlanta ranked 15th.
Quinn’s schematic plan in Dallas is still a bit murky. Here’s what McCarthy said about the “4-3 vs 3-4” debate in March: “The ability to have the 3-4 components to it and the 4-3 components based on how you view what that is, then it’s more about the techniques and alignments, assignments and front that allows for guys to play. You’ll see both those components. It’s not a whole lot different than what Mike (Nolan) was trying to get to last year. There will be a tighter blend of that.” Whatever the alignments might be, it’s fair to assume that Quinn’s arrival will push the Cowboys back toward some of the Seattle-based coverage principles that were prevalent under former coordinator Kris Richard.
When it comes to their defensive personnel, the Cowboys are a team in the midst of a face lift. Nowhere is that more apparent than at linebacker. A few days after selecting Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons at No. 12, the Cowboys declined the fifth-year option for oft-injured Leighton Vander Esch. Dallas also signed former Falcons safety Keanu Neal this offseason and has said publicly that he’ll shift to linebacker in Quinn’s scheme. It’s possible that by next season, Vander Esch and Jaylon Smith — both considered key pieces of an ascending defense not too long ago — are out of the picture as early as next season.
Long-term building blocks are tough to identify for the Dallas defense at this stage. Starting cornerback and 2020 second-round pick Trevon Diggs projects as one of them, and his improvement during the second half of his rookie season has to be encouraging for Cowboys fans. Diggs tallied several impressive reps playing downhill as a Cover 3 corner in the back half of the year, which should translate well to Quinn’s defensive scheme.
But outside of Diggs and established star Demarcus Lawrence, it’s hard to find many foundational pieces on this Dallas defense. Second-round Kelvin Joseph and former Falcons safety Damontae Kazee both profile as potential starters in their first year with the team, and Parsons — whose pass-rush versatility was a major selling point in the draft process — could be a necessary component for an unproven Dallas front. Overall, the Cowboys are projected to rank 20th in defensive spending in 2021 ($85.2 million), and that’s with Lawrence carrying a $25 million cap hit — the second highest in the league among defenders. At this point, the best-case scenario for the Dallas defense is to field a merely average unit, which still might be enough to take the NFC East if the offense can reach its considerable potential.
The Cowboys’ defensive depth chart signals a team in transition, but that’s exactly what this franchise is in 2021. With Prescott now on his top-of-market second contract, he’s become the central pillar of the Cowboys’ team-building plan, with other facets of the Dallas roster rotating and shifting around him. That’s the reality for any team with a QB on this sort of deal, and it’s a palatable existence if that quarterback lives up to that contract. In Prescott’s case, that seems well within reach.
Earlier this month on The Athletic Football Show, my co-hosts Nate Tice and Lindsay Jones joined me for what we called The Most Valuable Quarterback Draft. The premise was simple: Draft the top QBs in order of who you’d want for the next five years, contracts included. After Patrick Mahomes predictably went off the board first, Nate surprised the group by taking Prescott second. That may come as a shock to some, but take a moment to consider the QB landscape around the league. Deshaun Watson’s future is impossible to predict right now. Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson are reportedly both unhappy with their current situations and could be on the move at some point in the next year or so. Jared Goff and Carson Wentz — Prescott’s draft mates and two players once considered his peers in the QB hierarchy — have fallen out of favor with their drafting teams and were shipped out of town. Especially in the NFC, there’s a clear opening for the QB of the Future crown, and 27-year-old Prescott is in prime position to take advantage.
It’s difficult to know what the Cowboys’ long-term outlook will look like. Tyron Smith is 30 years old with a ton of tread on his tires, and his cap hit is set to more than double next year to $17.5 million. Dallas can save $5.2 million against the cap next season by moving on from Jaylon Smith, who’s struggled after signing a sizable five-year extension in 2019. Gallup will be a free agent after this season, and with Cooper making $22 million per season and Lamb already on the roster, retaining the former third-round pick seems unlikely. There’s also the distinct possibility that McCarthy — who’s largely been given a pass for last year’s issues following the Prescott injury — underwhelms as the Cowboys head coach.
Despite all that uncertainty, though, the 2021 Cowboys feature much of the same talent as the 2020 version, especially on offense. Even with Dallas paying the sticker price for Prescott and carrying multiple expensive veterans, this team is set up to compete in the short term. When discussing potential playoff teams in the NFC, the Cowboys should probably be getting more attention than they currently are, and that’s just never a place you expect to be.
By Robert Mays 3h ago
The Dallas Cowboys are impossible to avoid. In good times and bad, Jerry Jones’ team seems to be everywhere. It doesn’t matter if they’re winning the NFC East or picking in the top 10. Cowboys discourse still slithers its way into your average SportsCenter rundown, any time of the year.
That ubiquity is what has made this such a strange spring in Dallas. Because over the past couple of months, it just doesn’t feel like we’ve heard much about a team that’s typically a fixture in our lives.
There’s probably a reason for that. Dak Prescott debates dominated the news cycle for long stretches of the past year, with factions on both sides arguing about whether the Cowboys’ quarterback deserved the top-of-market mega-extension his representatives were reportedly asking for. After Prescott finally signed his four-year, $160 million deal — with a staggering $126 million guaranteed — in early March, the drama in Big D had all but evaporated. With Prescott paid and several other second-contract stars still on the roster, Dallas didn’t have much financial wiggle room in a year where the cap had fallen to $185 million. The Cowboys, who’ve been fairly cautious with free agency under normal circumstances, were mostly set with roster moves. Even their first-round pick in this year’s draft, Micah Parsons, failed to create much buzz. Taking an off-ball linebacker 12th overall will do that. Since the Prescott extension, the biggest story out of Dallas has been Julio Jones wearing a Cowboys hoodie and then saying with gusto that he had no interest in playing for the franchise.
Superstars like Jones, Aaron Rodgers, and others have owned the NFL conversation in recent weeks, but even with all the other stories swirling, the Cowboys have taken an unfamiliar backseat — in terms of both attention and expectations — compared to last season. Last summer, BetMGM set the over/under for Cowboys wins at 9.5. Among NFC teams, only the Saints, 49ers, and Bucs had a higher total. By Labor Day, so many people had bet the Cowboys’ over that books were begging teams to bet the other side (the under had ballooned all the way to +135). In August of last year, ESPN ranked Dallas eighth in its preseason power rankings. Several writers (including this one) predicted the Cowboys to not only win the NFC East but to compete for the No. 1 overall seed in the conference. We all know what happened next.
After a 1-3 start full of explosive offense and disastrous defense, Prescott suffered a compound fracture in his right ankle against the Giants in early October, and an Andy Dalton-led Cowboys team faded into obscurity. Dallas finished head coach Mike McCarthy’s first season with a 6-10 record, and those disappointing results have informed the projections for this year’s version. Those same ESPN preseason power rankings have the Cowboys ranked 16th. The Athletic’s Sheil Kapadia has Dallas at No. 17. Some pundits believe the Cowboys might be the third best team in their own division. So, with OTAs just getting underway, this seems like an opportune time to take stock of America’s Team. In the wake of Prescott’s extension, and heading into Year 2 of McCarthy’s tenure, what are the Cowboys?
This probably goes without saying, but Prescott’s extension signals the dawn of a new era in Dallas. Prescott earned more than $31 million playing on the franchise tag last season, but with their QB carrying cap hits of $33 million, $44 million, and $47 million starting in 2022, the Cowboys’ days of enjoying an excellent QB on a dirt-cheap deal are officially over for good.
It’s hard not to lament what could have been for Dallas over the lifespan of Prescott’s rookie contract . In 2018, for example, Prescott carried a cap hit of $725,848 — about 51 times less than Jimmy Garoppolo cost the 49ers that season. The Cowboys had a high-level quarterback making about $30,000 less than Cody Kessler but fielded an offense that ranked 24th in offensive DVOA. Dallas swapped out offensive coordinator Scott Linehan for Kellen Moore and fielded an elite offense in 2019, but the damage of Jason Garrett’s final years in Dallas had already been done.
For a variety of reasons, circumstances in Dallas have dramatically shifted since the early days of Prescott’s rookie deal. Prescott’s own contract is a significant reason for that, but he’s far from the only Cowboys star who’s gotten paid. Offensive linemen Tyron Smith, Zack Martin, and La’el Collins are all on sizable veteran deals. Ezekiel Elliott’s $13.7 million cap hit this fall is the highest in the league among running backs. He’ll cost Dallas about two and a half times as much as Austin Ekeler — who has the seventh highest cap hit at the position — will cost the Chargers in 2021. At $22 million, Amari Cooper has the second highest cap hit in the league among WRs. Luckily for Dallas, CeeDee Lamb and Michael Gallup are set to make less than $6 million combined on their rookie deals this fall, giving the Cowboys one of the league’s best three-receiver sets while ranking sixth in 2021 cap spending at the position ($36.6 million).
In total, Dallas (at $125.6 million) is projected to have the second most expensive offense in the NFL in 2021, just behind the Browns ($141.8 million). That’s not a problem as long as your offense is putting up truly elite numbers, which the Prescott-led Cowboys have shown they’re more than capable of doing. Through five games last season, Prescott was on a historic pace as a passer. He was on track to throw for nearly 6,000 yards as the Cowboys offense tried to keep up in shootout after shootout. Ridiculous volume contributed to those numbers (Prescott was throwing about 50 passes per game over the first month of the season), but if we dig into the underlying efficiency numbers, there are some encouraging signs.
Among QBs with at least 100 attempts last season, Prescott ranked 11th in expected points added per drop back, according to TruMedia. That may not seem all that impressive, considering the Cowboys’ gaudy passing numbers. But sacks cost Prescott an average of .118 EPA per drop back last year, which would have trailed only Carson Wentz for the league lead over the course of an entire season. Remove the sacks, and the numbers paint a rosier picture. Through five games, Prescott was averaging about .27 passing EPA per drop back. That would’ve been good for sixth in the NFL over the entire season.
That may seem like a cheap way to inflate Prescott’s numbers, but there’s good reason to believe that the Cowboys will have better pass protection this fall. Collins, who missed all of last season with hip troubles, is healthy and has returned to practice at right tackle. Injuries have been a consistent problem for Smith over the years, but after signing swing tackle Ty Nseke in free agency and drafting Josh Ball in the fourth round, Dallas is better insulated against injuries at tackle than it’s been in years. The Cowboys’ line isn’t the rock-solid unit across the board that it was early in Prescott’s career (left guard Connor Williams, who’s projected as a starter, was a consistent culprit in the protection issues early last season), but the group should still be better and healthier than it was in 2020.
Based on what Dallas has shown under offensive coordinator Kellen Moore over the past two seasons, including a unit that finished second in DVOA in 2019, a healthy Cowboys team likely finishes as a very good offense most of the time. On its own, that should be enough to make Dallas a contender in the NFC East and potentially relevant in the broader NFC picture. The more optimistic end of the Cowboys’ range of outcomes hinges on what happens with their defense, and that picture is considerably more muddled.
The 2020 Cowboys defense wasn’t as putrid as you probably think it was. In Prescott’s five starts last year, Dallas ranked 26th in EPA/play on defense, and each game seemed to include two or three mind-numbing mistakes. By the end of the season, though, coordinator Mike Nolan’s group had made a modest improvement from “constantly embarrassing” to “not very good.” The Cowboys ranked 13th in EPA/play from Weeks 6-17 and finished 20th in weighted defensive DVOA, but that bump wasn’t enough to save Nolan’s job.
Nolan was replaced by former Falcons head coach Dan Quinn, whose defenses in Atlanta were…defenses, I guess. Rarely awful but never great, the Falcons’ defense actually improved after interim coach Raheem Morris took over last year. Through Quinn’s five games, the Falcons ranked 30th in EPA/play on defense. Over their final 11 games, Atlanta ranked 15th.
Quinn’s schematic plan in Dallas is still a bit murky. Here’s what McCarthy said about the “4-3 vs 3-4” debate in March: “The ability to have the 3-4 components to it and the 4-3 components based on how you view what that is, then it’s more about the techniques and alignments, assignments and front that allows for guys to play. You’ll see both those components. It’s not a whole lot different than what Mike (Nolan) was trying to get to last year. There will be a tighter blend of that.” Whatever the alignments might be, it’s fair to assume that Quinn’s arrival will push the Cowboys back toward some of the Seattle-based coverage principles that were prevalent under former coordinator Kris Richard.
When it comes to their defensive personnel, the Cowboys are a team in the midst of a face lift. Nowhere is that more apparent than at linebacker. A few days after selecting Penn State linebacker Micah Parsons at No. 12, the Cowboys declined the fifth-year option for oft-injured Leighton Vander Esch. Dallas also signed former Falcons safety Keanu Neal this offseason and has said publicly that he’ll shift to linebacker in Quinn’s scheme. It’s possible that by next season, Vander Esch and Jaylon Smith — both considered key pieces of an ascending defense not too long ago — are out of the picture as early as next season.
Long-term building blocks are tough to identify for the Dallas defense at this stage. Starting cornerback and 2020 second-round pick Trevon Diggs projects as one of them, and his improvement during the second half of his rookie season has to be encouraging for Cowboys fans. Diggs tallied several impressive reps playing downhill as a Cover 3 corner in the back half of the year, which should translate well to Quinn’s defensive scheme.
But outside of Diggs and established star Demarcus Lawrence, it’s hard to find many foundational pieces on this Dallas defense. Second-round Kelvin Joseph and former Falcons safety Damontae Kazee both profile as potential starters in their first year with the team, and Parsons — whose pass-rush versatility was a major selling point in the draft process — could be a necessary component for an unproven Dallas front. Overall, the Cowboys are projected to rank 20th in defensive spending in 2021 ($85.2 million), and that’s with Lawrence carrying a $25 million cap hit — the second highest in the league among defenders. At this point, the best-case scenario for the Dallas defense is to field a merely average unit, which still might be enough to take the NFC East if the offense can reach its considerable potential.
The Cowboys’ defensive depth chart signals a team in transition, but that’s exactly what this franchise is in 2021. With Prescott now on his top-of-market second contract, he’s become the central pillar of the Cowboys’ team-building plan, with other facets of the Dallas roster rotating and shifting around him. That’s the reality for any team with a QB on this sort of deal, and it’s a palatable existence if that quarterback lives up to that contract. In Prescott’s case, that seems well within reach.
Earlier this month on The Athletic Football Show, my co-hosts Nate Tice and Lindsay Jones joined me for what we called The Most Valuable Quarterback Draft. The premise was simple: Draft the top QBs in order of who you’d want for the next five years, contracts included. After Patrick Mahomes predictably went off the board first, Nate surprised the group by taking Prescott second. That may come as a shock to some, but take a moment to consider the QB landscape around the league. Deshaun Watson’s future is impossible to predict right now. Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson are reportedly both unhappy with their current situations and could be on the move at some point in the next year or so. Jared Goff and Carson Wentz — Prescott’s draft mates and two players once considered his peers in the QB hierarchy — have fallen out of favor with their drafting teams and were shipped out of town. Especially in the NFC, there’s a clear opening for the QB of the Future crown, and 27-year-old Prescott is in prime position to take advantage.
It’s difficult to know what the Cowboys’ long-term outlook will look like. Tyron Smith is 30 years old with a ton of tread on his tires, and his cap hit is set to more than double next year to $17.5 million. Dallas can save $5.2 million against the cap next season by moving on from Jaylon Smith, who’s struggled after signing a sizable five-year extension in 2019. Gallup will be a free agent after this season, and with Cooper making $22 million per season and Lamb already on the roster, retaining the former third-round pick seems unlikely. There’s also the distinct possibility that McCarthy — who’s largely been given a pass for last year’s issues following the Prescott injury — underwhelms as the Cowboys head coach.
Despite all that uncertainty, though, the 2021 Cowboys feature much of the same talent as the 2020 version, especially on offense. Even with Dallas paying the sticker price for Prescott and carrying multiple expensive veterans, this team is set up to compete in the short term. When discussing potential playoff teams in the NFC, the Cowboys should probably be getting more attention than they currently are, and that’s just never a place you expect to be.
