Caleb Harris
When Derrick Henry hit free agency this year, one team he would definitely be interested in signing with was the Dallas Cowboys.
From a personal standpoint, the potential move would have made a lot of sense: the Cowboys had a huge running back need and Henry was one of the best players available at the position. Turns out the Cowboys didn’t even bother to call Henry and now we know why.
During a recent interview on SiriusXM Mad Dog Radio, Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones explained why his team didn’t reach out to the NFL’s active leader in career rushing. The Cowboys didn’t even bother to make a courtesy call, and apparently it had everything to do with the salary cap situation.
“Our situation is fair, you know, and nobody wants to say that, but it’s the salary cap, and we just didn’t have the money to allocate to that position in terms of where we were from a cap standpoint,” Jones said, via PFT. “Knowing what we’re seeing with Dak [Prescott] and certainly Micah [Parsons] and CeeDee Lamb.”
Prescott, Parsons, and Lamb are all expected to get extensions soon, which actually makes this situation a little worse because if the Cowboys had gotten any of those extensions before the start of free agency, it likely would have freed up some salary cap space for the 2024 offseason.
Henry is finished signing a two-year contract worth $16 million with the Ravens that included $9 million in guaranteed money and Jones says the Cowboys simply didn’t have the space to sign a running back to a contract like that.
“We simply didn’t have those kinds of resources to allocate to that position or we probably would have already filled it with Tony Pollard,” Jones said. “We simply didn’t have the money to allocate to the running back position. And we were certainly looking to do that in a more efficient way in terms of how it would complement the rest of our offensive roster.”
Pollard actually ended up with the Titans after Tennessee brought him in to replace Henry.
After signing with the Ravens in March, Henry said he I would definitely be interested at the Cowboys if they had called.
“Yes, of course,” said Henry, when asked if he would be interested. “That’s where I stay in the off-season. … It’s a great organization. It would have been a great opportunity, but I’m grateful I ended up here in Baltimore, a place I wanted to be.”
Elsewhere this offseason, Henry said landing with the Cowboys would have been the “perfect situation.” The fact that the Cowboys didn’t even call Henry is the bizarre part. If he wanted to play for them, he might be willing to take a small discount, but they’ll never know since they never called.
It would have made sense to check with Henry to see if both sides were on the same financial footing, but that didn’t happen.
Henry spent his entire eight-season career with the Titans before signing with the Ravens in March, but it appears he would have been happy to sign with Dallas. The Cowboys clearly didn’t feel the same way about Henry and although the running back didn’t sign with them, he will play one game in Dallas this year when the Cowboys host the Ravens.
Henry will find out when his trip to Dallas will take place after the NFL releases its 2024 schedule on Wednesday.
