Every year, an NFL free agent will say they’re ready to win a Super Bowl with their new team, as well they should. They get a new start and new opportunities in a new city, so it’s right that they’re excited — maybe even cocky.
Of course, some others are less excited about where they wound up and more excited to no longer be where they were. They just couldn't wait to leave a bad organization, and they’ll tell you about it. That was DeMarcus Lawrence signing with the Seattle Seahawks this offseason.
As soon as he escaped the pit of less-than-mediocrity that is the current Dallas Cowboys, signing a new deal with the Seattle Seahawks, the pass rusher took his first opportunity to metaphorically windmill dunk on Jerry Jones. Asked at his introductory press conference about how much time he was going to spend in Washington state rather than Texas (where his family is), Lawrence responded: "I made my home there. My family lives there. I’m forever gonna be there, but I know for sure I’m not gonna win a Super Bowl there, so … We here.”
A few months later, he went on to win a Super Bowl with the Seahawks.
DeMarcus Lawrence didn't waste any time making the Cowboys look bad
That wasn’t an "I can finally go win a Super Bowl" sort of response. It was more like "you didn’t ask me, but I finally have a chance to win a Super Bowl." Which makes sense: Lawrence was with the Cowboys for 11 seasons, and only ever won three playoff games in that span. A man can only take so much disappointment.
It turns out that he wasn’t just right, he was super right. The Cowboys didn’t make it to the playoffs this season, and Lawrence won a Super Bowl the minute he got out of Dallas. That makes him the fourth ex-Cowboy to win a Super Bowl before Jones' team has made it back to the NFC Championship game for the first time since 1995.
- DeMarcus Ware spent the first nine years (2005 to 2013) of his career with the Cowboys. In that time, he won exactly one playoff game. Then he went to Denver in free agency, and in 2015, he won Super Bowl 50.
- Anthony Hitchens was in Dallas for four years, from 2014 to 2017. In that time, he won exactly one playoff game. Then he went to Kansas City and won Super Bowl 54 in 2019.
- Damien Wilson was with the Cowboys for four years, from 2015 to 2018. In that time, he won exactly one playoff game. Then he also went to Kansas City and won Super Bowl 54 in 2019.
Those three guys didn’t give the double-birds to Dallas on their way out like Lawrence did, but they still had near-immediate success with good football teams. At this point, it almost seems like an intentional bit that the Cowboys are trying to lean into.
Are the Cowboys now just the NFL's farm system?
Over the past couple of seasons, we’ve seen Dallas release several high-profile players, allowing them to go to contenders instead.
At the end of the 2024 season, they released a battered and tattered Ezekiel Elliott so that he could join a team that was trying to make a playoff run. On January 6th, 2025, he got picked up by the Chargers. Five days later, their season ended after a Wild Card loss to the Texans. This season, the Cowboys released a battered and tattered Trevon Diggs. The Packers picked him up, and on January 10, their season ended in a Wild Card loss to the Bears.
Letting players leave late in the season isn’t a Cowboys-exclusive move. But you don’t need to advertise that you’re letting them go because you think they can be valuable to someone else. You can just let them walk out the door and thank them for their service.
The Cowboys have been flubbing their assessment of talent for a long time now, and all of this makes the franchise look like a bunch of ding-dongs. They overvalue their bad players and undervalue their good players, And D-Law publicly calling them out for their past, current and future lack of success is a hell of a bad beat for a franchise that specializes in them.