3 ways the Dallas Cowboys afford Jamal Adams without breaking the cap
By Reid Hanson
The Dallas Cowboys aren’t exactly flush with cash but they can easily afford Jamal Adams for the near future
National sports pundits are incorrectly dismissing the Dallas Cowboys as a viable option for Jamal Adams simply because of their current cap situation. The reality is there are multiple ways the team can afford Adams and none of them result in salary cap hell.
There’s a narrative going around that just because the Dallas Cowboys are only expected to have $36 million in cap space available in 2021 (not counting Dak Prescott) that somehow they can’t afford Jamal Adams. Otherwise intelligent football folks have taken a very elementary-level view the salary cap and as such, the conclusions drawn from that have been misguided.
Contracts are living things. Say what you want about Stephen Jones and his penny pinching ways, but the dude is a salary cap savant. He engineers deals that can be manipulated in multiple ways that won’t bring certain depth to the franchise’s financials.
The Dallas Cowboys can afford Jamal Adams and they don’t need to give up on Dak Prescott to do so. Today we’ll get into how they can afford everyone under the sun and cap hell doesn’t have to be the final outcome.
Jamal Adams Trade Compensation
The compensation the New York Jets receive is an entirely different topic. For the purposes of this exercise we’re going to assume the Dallas Cowboys have a suitable deal in place to acquire Adams. And no, that doesn’t involve trading Michael Gallup (who was never even asked for but just a wild idea from a NY writer) or La’el Collins (who is a top-5 OT in the NFL and playing under a very team-friendly deal).
Instead of focusing on the compensation let’s just look at how the Dallas Cowboys can afford him because it’s not nearly as impossible as some want to make you believe.