The Dallas Cowboys are always the most notable of the “Big 4” professional clubs in North Texas: the Texas Rangers, Dallas Stars, Dallas Mavericks, and Dallas Cowboys. According to Forbes, they are still the most profitable sports franchise worldwide and are likely the most well-known. Both locally and nationally, they always have the upper hand on the sports talk radio waves.
The Cowboys are now the only team in the area without any significant postseason success in recent memory.
The Rangers won their first World Series championship in team history last autumn, and they are currently the current champs. With one more victory, the Mavericks will make their first trip to the NBA Finals since their 2011 championship. After their run in 2020, the Stars are two victories away from making it back to the Stanley Cup Final. It remains to be seen if the Mavericks and/or Stars will follow the Rangers as winners, although the Cowboys have not been in the conference championship round where they currently are in almost thirty years.
Dak Prescott, the quarterback for the Cowboys, was questioned last week on the other three teams’ victories and how his own team’s shortcomings compared.
“It’s not jealousy, but yeah, it fires you up,” Prescott said. “A hundred percent. Yeah, any competitor should, damn sure, in my position, leader of the team, understanding what winning means here, not getting it done, and then watching your brothers across the city, go and make things happen. I want it for them. Trust me, I want it, because it only raises the stakes and makes it tougher on me. And I’m for that. Go win it. Rangers did it. Other two go do it. Put more f—— pressure on us.”
It is usually difficult to compare teams from different sports. It is impossible to compare things apples to apples because of how different everything is, from the league’s current status to the working environment. There are a few similarities, though. Working under a salary cap is a big one that the Cowboys, Mavericks, and Stars all share. While the NFL and NHL function more under a hard cap, the NBA has a “soft” cap. However, the presence of a pay ceiling, in whatever form, raises certain issues that need to be discussed.
Let us examine the front offices closely and discover how the Mavericks, Stars, and Cowboys put together their rosters.
The Big 3
According to Stephen Jones, the executive vice president of the Cowboys, acquiring players is a year-round endeavor. The NFL, NBA, and NHL each have three significant player acquisition opportunities throughout the year. Teams have the option to sign free agents, select young, inexpensive players in the draft, and make aggressive trade market moves to acquire players.
The Mavericks have relied a lot on deals in the past. Even its two franchise cornerstones, Luka Dončić and Dirk Nowitzki, were chosen by the Mavericks via deals made on draft day. Their 2011 title team was full of players acquired through trades. Their initial endeavor to assemble a team around Dončić also involved trading for Kristaps Porzingis, and their subsequent, more prosperous endeavor including Kyrie Irving also involved a trade. With the exception of two huge hits, free agency was largely a joke, and the draft was as humiliating.
A different picture emerges when considering the Mavericks throughout their postseason run. Four players have completed over 400 minutes so far:
• The top guy, Dončić, was a draft pick.
Irving and P.J. Washington were acquired through trade deadlines.
• The fourth, Derrick Jones Jr., signed in free agency.
• If you drop a few more spots to a minimum of 200 minutes this postseason, you will have Josh Green and Dereck Lively Jr. as draft picks, along with another trade deadline acquisition in Daniel Gafford.
The Stars are constructed slightly differently than the Mavericks, who exhibit a more draft and trade influence along with a hint of free agency.
Jason Robertson, Miro Heiskanen, Wyatt Johnston, and Jamie Benn are the top four scorers for the Stars in the postseason who were all selected in the draft. A top-five pick, a first-round pick from the bottom (star goaltender Jake Oettinger qualifies here as well), a second-round pick, and a fifth-round pick are among those draft hits. Important draft picks include Thomas Harley, Logan Stankoven, and Rope Hintz.
Tyler Seguin, who was acquired by trade, is the fifth-leading scorer for the Stars in the postseason. The Stars also acquired Chris Tanev in this manner; he has excelled defensively throughout the playoffs. Along with contributions from Craig Smith, Sam Steel, and Ryan Suter, the Stars have hit home homers in free agency with Joe Pavelski and Matt Duchene.
The Cowboys are more lopsided in their approach.
The Cowboys’ starting lineup, projecting their current offense (11 players), would include 10 draft picks (including undrafted rookie free-agent signings). The sole player acquired by the Cowboys during the previous offseason who was not a draft pick was Brandin Cooks. In terms of their defense, nine out of the eleven expected starters are draft selections. The only players signed in free agency who were not selected in the draft were safety Malik Hooker and linebacker Eric Kendricks.
The Cowboys have a strong squad; they have three straight regular seasons with twelve wins. They have been a very good club. The Cowboys’ scouting group and vice president of player personnel Will McClay deserve credit for the draft’s exceptional performance thus far. The Cowboys are infamous for their lack of talk during free agency. Although they have recently made some excellent depth trades, the unusual nature of the trades for Cooks and Stephon Gilmore caused some people to take notice. Other than those two, there have been no noteworthy trades. In 2018, Amari Cooper was acquired in a midseason move that was mostly seen as a solution to an issue brought on by the previous offseason’s lack of activity.
Jones claims that finding players takes 365 days, but the Cowboys have not always followed that schedule.
Financial decisions
The contract statuses of pass rusher Micah Parsons, wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, and quarterback Prescott are the main narratives surrounding the Cowboys this offseason. Due to their top-of-the-market extensions, all three players will be among the best paid players in league history at their respective positions. Specifically, Prescott and Lamb are slated to enter their final season of contracts in 2024, with identical schedules. Parsons’ rookie contract has two years left on it because he has a fifth-year option.
When it comes to important deals, the vast majority of general managers in professional sports have their successes and disappointments. Tim Hardaway Jr., who will take up about 12 percent of the Mavericks’ salary limit through the following season, is getting paid a lot of money. Not too long ago, Benn and Seguin, who together accounted for almost 11% of the Stars salary cap, appeared to be costly liabilities with contracts that would not hold up over time. Michael Gallup’s five-year, $62.5 million contract in 2022 and Ezekiel Elliott’s significant extension in 2019 were recent mistakes for the Cowboys.
In particular, the Stars have demonstrated a mastery in managing their big contracts. They have been lucky that two of their greatest players, Hintz and Heiskanen, are easygoing negotiators who signed long-term contracts for less than their worth, but they have also expertly managed their finances. Their structure has always been based on balance. To prevent things from collapsing too frequently, the Stars have spaced out their top players and earners.
The contract with Pavelski and Duchene will expire as Harley is due this summer. In 2025, Oettinger, one of the greatest goaltenders in the league, and Johnston, the Stars’ top goal scorer this season, will require an extension. Benn, Esa Lindell, Radek Faksa, and Suter’s cap numbers will all be removed during that same summer. Despite several players not living up to their enormous cap hits, the Stars have been able to obtain a net positive value from their roster since they began drafting so heavily in 2017.
Even though they did not happen all at once, the Cowboys have experienced financial difficulties on several times. The Cowboys had to balance the impending huge extensions of Prescott, Elliott, and Cooper in 2019. They ultimately chose to wait and let the cost of Prescott and Cooper increase, giving Elliott and linebacker Jaylon Smith large contracts. They find themselves in a similar situation this season, with the three large, top-market deals looming large over the franchise and bankrupting them.
The hot seat
The general manager is the person in charge of making choices about player acquisition and retention, as indicated above. The General Manager bears the consequences, regardless of whether it was a poor decision or a chain of unfortunate events. The most important outcome is job security.
GMs Jim Nill of the Stars and Nico Harrison of the Mavericks must consider that outcome. Harrison has not felt the clock ticking too much because he was hired in 2021 after Donnie Nelson’s lengthy tenure as general manager. Harrison took over and left his mark on the group, correcting some of the previous regime’s errors and leading the group forward in his own way.
Nill was instrumental in the Stars’ revival in 2013, just as the team was emerging from bankruptcy and welcoming new ownership. But in 2018 and 2019, especially after the Stars had a difficult start to the season, Nill’s seat was becoming hot. Nill helped turn the Stars into a strong team once more. The major contracts were not aging well, and the draft record was poor through 2016. Nill has essentially been King Midas since 2017. He is a finalist to reclaim the title in 2024 after winning GM of the Year in 2023.
The general manager of the Cowboys is unafraid of this outcome. While the idea of Jerry the Owner sacking Jerry the GM seems creative, Jerry Jones, the general manager of the Cowboys, is aware that he will never have to worry about the owner taking him out of his position. The general manager of the Cowboys has no accountability to anyone for ensuring his job security, regardless of how many disastrous contracts he signs, how flawed the team’s philosophy is, or how successful the team performs in the postseason.
A team’s owner and general manager have different roles to play: the owner is more focused on producing a profitable product, while the GM is more focused on producing a winning one. In cases where an individual possesses both titles, the “owner” typically wins the tiebreaker. From that vantage point, the Cowboys are the most successful sports organization globally, not just among the local teams. However, the Cowboys are now No. 4 in their own market when it comes to winning.
(Top photos of Luka Doncic, Dak Prescott, Jason Robertson: Melissa Tamez, Michael Owens, Christopher Mas / Getty Images)
