Dallas Cowboys deemed team ‘stuck in middle’ and ‘move or two away’ relative to current roster
NFL analysts believe the Dallas Cowboys are a stuck in the middle team right now.
There is an old adage that the NFL season was equally productive for all 31 teams who did not win the Super Bowl. The Philadelphia Eagles
obviously won the Super Bowl and in that sense were the only team to accomplish the game’s ultimate goal, but we do not have to be obtuse to the point where we act like the Kansas City Chiefs accomplished just as much as the Tennessee Titans.
Maybe you feel that way. There is no trophy for second place, after all. But we at the very least can acknowledge that every team is in their own unique position with respect to their hopes of climbing the mountain next year. 31 teams may have theoretically finished in the same place, but they are at 31 different points on the path to trying to right that wrong.
Recently ESPN decided to sort every team in the league into various categories of where their rosters sit and organized them as such
You know the title of this post and therefore where the Cowboys rank, we’ll get to that in a second. Something that is interesting is that Dallas is one of seven teams with a new head coach, but that only the Jacksonville Jaguars and New Orleans Saints (shout out Kellen Moore) are in the new coach category. The New England Patriots and New York Jets were lumped in the very bottom category (clearly some bigger projects than other teams with new head coaches). Rounding out the teams with new head coaches the Chicago Bears were lumped in the spot that could go either way while the Las Vegas Raiders are regarded as still being stuck in quarterback purgatory.
The TL;DR version of that is that the Cowboys are ranked/sorted higher than any other team with a new head coach for 2025 which is something, I suppose.
The Cowboys are one of four teams in this area with the Atlanta Falcons, Indianapolis Colts and San Francisco 49ers joining them. Of the group, the Cowboys have the second-most salary cap space behind only the Falcons.
We know that the Cowboys are a team who has the ability to draft well and on some level trust that arm of the team to remain legitimate in 2025. But as the blurb above notes, that is not enough in general, let alone a division that boasts the Super Bowl champions and NFC runner up (not to mention a New York Giants team that could see an infusion of help if they get the right quarterback… hardly an easy thing). The blurb starts with saying the Cowboys need to get their edge “back”. More like they need to find one, the same one that other teams have been utilizing as of late in free agency.
It should in no way be a decision on “whether” the Cowboys are going to extend Micah Parsons. Given how much heat this front office has taken as of late, there is zero reason to not try to beat the edge rusher market that will develop across the league this offseason and take care of this as soon as possible. That is how you prove to people that you are starting to take things seriously again, or trying to recapture your edge.
Taking care of Parsons is a domino that helps other things fall, by the way. In doing so the Cowboys can aggressively pursue a return for Osa Odighizuwa – which is why we screamed for them to take care of CeeDee Lamb and Dak Prescott as early as possible as well – and help for the rest of the roster. The Eagles just won it all and the Commanders know they are close, they are going to be even more aggressive themselves in all likelihood which creates a ton of competition.
