The Dallas Cowboys Are Gambling Former Packers 28-Year-Old Defensive End
The Dallas Cowboys got 2024 Pro Bowler, 28-year-old edge rusher Rashan Gary from the Green Bay Packers for their 2027 fourth-round pick on Thursday, March 26th. The two-year deal is worth $32 million, with $16 million immediately guaranteed in full. This means his pay goes from about $20 million to just a bit less than five and a half million dollars, an astonishing almost $14 million pay cut from his current salary cap with the Packers. However, the approximately 20 million dollars he was making from the previous team was also not guaranteed, unlike the Cowboys deal.
This new deal allows him to receive a cool and crisp, roughly $13 million sign-on bonus with the Cowboys. Gary posted seven sacks last season and is a “cheap” option to acquire, which manages to do multiple things all at the same time. This keeps the Cowboys' budget from bursting as Jerry Jones has feared, improves their needed defense, allows him to focus on his specialty of edge rushing, and aligns with Christian Parker’s stated goal of stopping the run, all at the same time. Jones and Parker made yet another good choice for now, adding a decent player option to improve a serious problem for less than two percent of their salary cap, but it does present the problem of the future’s needs.
The second half of the deal is notably the part that affects the 2027 roster. To get Gary to come into the fold, they had to give up their fourth-round pick about a year from now. This does run the risk Jones had about sacrificing their long-term prospects for short-term gains, which could ruin their chances of taking the NFC East. Gary, meanwhile, is doing pretty well for himself; he has a sign-on bonus of approximately $13 million, the guaranteed $16 million, and then a recovering salary cap in 2028. He had to annul the Packers' offer of an uncertain $19 million and take a couple of hits to his salary cap in exchange for all this money. The new Cowboys player is being paid about two million for 2026 and $15 million for 2027.
