Cowboys salary cap casualties have officially begun

As the Cowboys front office is forced to navigate some hefty contracts, some Dallas players are already being let go.

One of the trickiest things in the NFL has to be when a team has to navigate salary cap space because they’re paying a few players absurdly large amounts of money.

Right now it looks like that’s the exact situation the Dallas Cowboys are in.

Dallas’ front office folks have asked players to take pay cuts, convinced Dak Prescott to restructure his contract, examined the possibility of moving on from Amari Cooper, and now they’re having to release some players from their contracts.

Like Greg Zuerlein and Blake Jarwin, for example.

Zuerlein, a 34-year-old kicker from Lincoln, Nebraska, has been in the NFL since 2012, playing for the St. Louis Rams and then the Los Angeles Rams and most recently Dallas. He’s made 82.2 percent of his field goal attempts throughout the years.

Jarwin, a 27-year-old tight end from Oklahoma City, has been with the Cowboys since 2017 and has made 70 catches for 780 yards and eight touchdowns over the 42 games he’s been able to play in.

Even if they understand that this is just part of the business, it’s almost certainly not something that Zuerlein and Jarwin are happy about.

Dallas Cowboys release players as they navigate salary cap space

While these moves likely do help them out some, the Cowboys will still have other moves they’ll need to make as they try to get around this cap space situation.

At the moment, it looks like Dallas is still trying to figure out how to address Cooper and his contract. Right now, it doesn’t seem like the Cowboys really know what they want to do with the talented receiver and his contract.

While the Cowboys are having to make some adjustments, they should still have the potential to be a pretty good team next season. It’ll be fascinating to see just how good they are though.