Dallas Cowboys free agency: 3 takeaways from the lack of Dallas activity on Day 1

The Cowboys stood by and watched across all of Day 1 of free agency.

It is officially past working hours on Monday, March 11th and the Dallas Cowboys have yet to get on the board. We are of course talking about free agency with the NFL’s legal tampering period opening at 12pm ET. In looking at everything that Dallas has done – you can keep tabs on it all with our tracker – there is a whole bunch of nothing.

Technically this is not true. The Cowboys may not have any new bodies but they do have a few new holes. Tony Pollard got things started by returning to his home state with the Tennessee Titans meanwhile both Dorance Armstrong and Tyler Biadasz have followed Dan Quinn to the Washington Commanders. At the time of this writing Jourdan Lewis has also been slightly connected to Washington, meanwhile nobody has even been loosely tied to the Cowboys.

It has been a frustrating day for a lot of fans and we are going to do our best to walk through it all with three different takeaways.

Every team in the NFC East except for the Cowboys made a significant move

It is very often said that NFL teams build their roster to win their division. That is, of course, the easiest and most-assured way towards entering the postseason tournament. While it is hard to say that the Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants and/or Washington Commanders are specifically working on attacking the Cowboys, they are at the very least working.

There has been a flurry of activity for every team, but notably the Philadelphia Eagles landed running back Saquon Barkley and pass rusher Bryce Huff. Meanwhile the New York Giants have a new pass rusher of their own after trading for Brian Burns and also replaced Barkley by bringing in Devin Singletary. Washington took two Cowboys and also signed Austin Ekeler in addition to Frankie Luvu.

Super Bowls are not won during the legal tampering period, nor are they lost in a significant way, but each of Dallas’ rivals are better than they were when the window opened while the Cowboys themselves are worse.

The state of the league saw running backs get decent money while the Cowboys are likely relying on a draft class not deep at the position

Each of the other NFC East teams all got new running backs. The Eagles paid a bit more for theirs given Barkley’s reputation, but the position saw some serious activity on Monday.

Outside of the division the Green Bay Packers paid Josh Jacobs while the Titans landed Tony Pollard. Antonio Gibson joined the New England Patriots and D’Andre Swift started the party by joining the Chicago Bears. In terms of serious names only Derrick Henry and Aaron Jones (released in the Jacobs’ aftermath) remain.

This is not a deep draft class for running backs and it appears that NFL teams have taken serious notice of that. Ensuring that a position isn’t one of need prior to the draft is a smart way to build your roster, something the Cowboys have done in the past.

But with Pollard out the Cowboys now face the reality of finding a legitimate primary ball-carrier and are running out of options and methods to do that. Maybe fate will smile upon them by way of Henry or Jones, but given that Dallas was unwilling to pay Pollard what Tennessee did that feels a bit rich (no pun intended).

All of this was predictable, but that does not make it any less frustrating

Throughout the day as details of everything was unfolding there were folks all over the internet noting how predictable this was. That was and is true.

But does that make it any less frustrating? Of course not. Whether or not you bought into Jerry Jones’ claim of going “all in” this year, that Dallas is so willing to continually watch other teams better their roster while thumbing their nose at the period is difficult to square even from a logical perspective.

The Cowboys have had great success in the regular season in recent history and it is important to note that. But why not consider dabbling in the free agency pools in the name of having even more success? Why not consider an alternative line of thought than the one that has been driving the franchise for over a decade now?

History is written by the winners and there is no pen in hand for the Cowboys’ front office. They may think that their way is best, but to not even consider doing things slightly different despite an overwhelming amount of evidence suggesting otherwise is bold at the very least. It is potentially some sort of arrogant in other respects.

We all knew that this was coming. That this was the case only makes the reality more frustrating, not something we should be more understanding of.