Mac Engel: Cowboys' Stephen Jones won't live down his air quotes until they break the drought

Mac Engel, Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Jan 28, 2025

Published in Football

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As Jerry Jones was once “All In,” the son is now Stephen “Air Quotes” Jones.

Shortly after the Dallas Cowboys vice president now famously put up his air quotes to minimize the team’s “drought,” he hinted that maybe their approach to how they build a roster in the offseason will change.

Maybe.

“You always have to evaluate yourself. When you’re not having success you have to look at it,” Stephen Jones said Monday, after the conclusion of the press conference to introduce new head coach Brian Schottenheimer.

The “Almosts,” seven NFC East titles since 2007, and only five losing records since 2003 has Stephen and every other Jones convinced how they operate works. Because it does. And, it could be better.

Something is amiss in how the Cowboys structure contracts, and or in their player development.

Not all teams with expensive quarterbacks, like the Cowboys, are up against the salary cap the way this franchise routinely sells. Unlike the NBA or MLB, the NFL’s salary cap is built of concrete and reinforced steel rather than mud.

There is a better way to operate within this rigid structure rather than, “Well, we’d love to but we can’t.”

If that is the continued attitude and operating procedure, Schottenheimer has the same chance of success as Mike McCarthy, a coach who was undercut but a series of personnel moves that left him with a roster just good enough to lose.

Assembling a payroll within the NFL’s salary cap is not a grid of slot cars that all easily fit; fitting more than 53 multi-year contracts of varying values under a limit is a complicated 53,000-piece puzzle designed to keep costs controlled, fixed, and low.

As other teams proved, there is a way to make this puzzle fit better than the Cowboys.

The success of the Denver Broncos, L.A. Rams and Philadelphia Eagles, and to a lesser extent the New Orleans Saints, should motivate the Cowboys to do one of those “deep dives” into how they build their roster. Each of these franchises has made a series of expensive moves while navigating a salary cap that has been used as the explanation why the Cowboys avoid the type of actual rather than rhetorical “All In” moves.

Like the Eagles signing free agent running back Saquon Barkley. Like the Rams adding Matt Stafford, Von Miller, Jalen Ramsey and Odell Beckham in their Super Bowl-winning season of 2021. Like the Broncos trading for quarterback Russell Wilson, signing him to a big extension, and then flushing him for zero when it didn’t work; the Broncos rebounded from that to make the playoffs this season.

The last time the Cowboys pulled off a “bold move” of this caliber was the trade to acquire wide receiver Amari Cooper from the Oakland Raiders that required a first round pick. The trade changed the trajectory of a season that included a playoff win, and a loss in the divisional round. That was in 2018.

Since then, the additions have been for mid, or lower, tier veterans. In March of 2023, they traded a fifth and sixth round pick to the Texans for Brandin Cooks. That same offseason, they sent a fifth round pick to the Colts for Stephon Gilmore.

The team did almost nothing but let decent players walk in free agency, and it burned them in 2024.

“Obviously we’re going to handicap it a little bit because of our inordinate injury situation (in 2024). Kinda glad we didn’t totally over leverage this year with all of our injuries because I don’t think that it would have helped,” Stephen Jones said. “A lot of it is the maturing contracts of Dak (Prescott) and CeeDee (Lamb), the magnitude of them had us thinking more of our ability draft and develop.

“Historically we’ve tried to take care of needs in free agency. The year before we did it with Brandin Cooks and Stephon Gilmore. Those are something that we will go back and re-visit.”

This is one of those “Do Not Trust & Be Sure As Hell to Verify” statements.

The Cowboys have approximately $22 million this offseason in salary cap room to operate; this will include an extension for defensive end Micah Parsons that will make him one of the highest paid players in the league.

It’s hard to see them retaining defensive lineman Osa Odighizuwa, and or running back Rico Dowdle. Both are unrestricted free agents who should command a healthy number.

Replacing Dowdle’s production with a draft pick or two is doable. Finding someone as capable as Odighizuwa in a rookie is highly unlikely.

Other teams have shown there is a way to keep not necessarily everybody, but “their own,” while adding a premium name in the process.

The Cowboys just haven’t done it for years, because something is a bit off in how they structure all of those contracts, which partly explains why they’re in a “drought.”

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