#dallas-cowboys

#dallas-cowboys

It was reported on Friday afternoon that the NFL salary cap for 2026 is projected to be north of $300M for the first time ever. To say this is significant is putting it mildly. As it has often been said for the last few years, the salary cap is rising at an exponential rate. This year's cap is projected to be ~$20M more than last year's, all of that television money has to go somewhere.

The Senior Bowl showed me exactly where the Cowboys need help heading into the 2026 NFL Draft, not that it wasn't obvious, and it is exactly where people think. I watched the first couple days of Senior Bowl practices and saw guys fighting for their futures and somehow get coming back to the same thought about the Cowboys. This team isn't missing talent, it's missing balance. The middle of the offensive line is fine in Dallas, but the edges aren't. Also, the defense, oh my the defense, doesn't have enough players who can affect the quarterback when the game needs it.

There is another drop in that bucket. The Cowboys have another alternate headed to San Francisco. CeeDee Lamb has been added to the Pro Bowl and as the mothership's Nick Eatman notes it is his fifth straight season reaching the NFL's All-Star game. The subject of the Pro Bowl and the legitimacy of being named an alternate has been under fire as of late, but obviously CeeDee Lamb is an incredible player.

Year Review: After dealing away star edge rusher Micah Parsons less than a week before the start of the 2025 regular season, the Cowboys were scrambling to find some pass rush help. Dallas knew their pass rush group, minus Parsons, was not good enough to be a consistent threat, so they went outside the organization to get a much-needed upgrade.

The first step in getting this thing right is doing exactly what Jerry Jones did. Do the process like everyone else, get young names in the building, stop using old head coaches as your DC. That doesn't work as we have seen. Now, with getting Parker in the building, this could be great for their backend and maybe bring some guys in through free agency.

KaVontae Turpin is headed back to the Pro Bowl. He is replacing Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Rashid Shaheed who is set to play in the Super Bowl instead. Originally there were five members of the Cowboys named to the Pro Bowl: Dak Prescott, Tyler Smith, George Pickens, Quinnen Williams, and Brandon Aubrey.

The Brian Schottenheimer era kicked off in 2025, and although it didn't end how we would have wanted to, the future looks bright. Dallas took an unorthodox (for them) approach to fill the offensive coordinator position, and it paid off well. Usually known to hire ex-head coaches as coordinators, the Cowboys instead hired Arizona Cardinals OL Coach Klayton Adams as offensive coordinator, and the results were more than pleasant.

The Cowboys haven't lacked talent on defense, but they have lacked unpredictability. Everything in 2025 looked the same before the snap, and offenses have known exactly where to go with the ball. Parker's background suggests that's not how he wants to run a defense. His approach leans toward more movement, disguise, and putting more on the safeties to read what's developing instead of just sitting. That alone could put the safety position front and center in this reset.

The most likely aspect that'll come over for Parker from a schematic standpoint is the two-high safety look. It's a versatile approach that doesn't tip the secondary's plan pre-snap and forces the QB to make post-snap reads as defenders can rotate into all sorts of different coverage looks after the snap in both man and zone. From a coverage standpoint, their most utilized coverage was Cover 3 over the two years Parker coached the Eagles (32.1% on average).

For Diggs, an offseason dispute over another rehab away from The Star was just the first step in what was to become a messy divorce. The Micah Parsons trade seemed to be the last straw, even though Diggs would play in eight games for the Cowboys, with six starts. He would finish with 25 tackles in those eight games. But he wouldn't record a single interception. He was finally released late in the year.

The 43-year-old Wisconsin native and former NFL safety is Denver's assistant head coach and defensive pass game coordinator, and he's risen through the ranks quickly to earn those titles. Hired in 2024 by the Broncos as the defensive backs coach and pass game coordinator, he's already seen a promotion in Mile High, and was a college assistant as recently as 2023 with the Illinois Fighting Illini.

In 2025, the Dallas Cowboys made a move in free agency and swung for the fences with two trades to shore up their linebacker room. They couldn't have gotten it any more wrong if they tried. Jack Sanborn was brought in from Chicago along with former Bears head coach Matt Eberflus. Both linebacker and defensive coordinator flopped badly. The Cowboys traded with the Los Angeles Chargers for linebacker Kenneth Murray.

They are worth an absurd amount of money. We can save discussions for how the Cowboys can still afford (no pun intended) to be more active in free agency for another day, but on this one we are talking about how they currently have an opportunity to weaponize their value, both their financial one and the subsequent opportunities that are born from being associated with them.

What's Next? Keep Dak Prescott hot, develop Joe Milton at QB