It’s the season of giving, but as we look toward the end of the 2024 season, it’s important to remember that the Cowboys’ offseason plans won’t give fans much to unwrap. Stephen Jones has already admitted this fact.
We saw this happen last free agency, as Dallas delayed giving out extensions, costing themselves the cap space to pursue players.
Make no mistake about it: the Cowboys could clear up a ton of cap space very easily, but they won’t do it because they aren’t a top-notch front office, and the moves they would have to make would take some effort.
What does this mean for the 2025 offseason? Some tough choices will have to be made, and we already know the biggest one.
The Cowboys offseason will come down to which of their two emerging defensive stars they bring back. They should have the money for one of them, but both are unlikely. Let’s discuss these guys and their case for a new deal.
Jourdan Lewis: Veteran Emerging As Pro-Bowler
For the entirety of Jourdan Lewis’ Cowboys career, he has been viewed as a reliable, “solid” slot cornerback who benefits the defense at a low contractual cost. In 2024, Lewis shed that narrative and emerged as a potential Pro Bowl selection.
His eighth NFL season has been one of his best, as he’s matched his career high in tackles, recorded a sack, broken up seven passes, and snagged a critical interception in Week 16.
Aside from the stats we can read on paper, it’s the outstanding coverage ability that has made Lewis’ season fantastic.
In a season of defensive struggles and injuries, Lewis has become completely indispensable to the unit; you could even say he’s carrying the secondary right now.
Luckily for Lewis, this career year has lined up with the final year of his contract. He will head into this Cowboys offseason needing a new deal, and he has plenty of room to ask for a significant raise.
He’s making just over $2.5M this year, but that same discount will not be afforded to Dallas in 2025. He has outplayed his salary.
With Trevon Diggs out indefinitely with his second knee surgery, DaRon Bland slowly working himself back, and minimal bright lights in the rest of the cornerback room, you can make a strong argument that Lewis should be the top priority to extend.
Osa Odighizuwa: Career Year In The Trenches
If you’ve been paying attention, you have seen that Cowboys Defensive Tackle, Osa Odighizuwa, has been slowly breaking out his entire career.
Originally a 2021 third-round pick out of UCLA, Odighizuwa came in showing flashes, as his numbers consistently improved year after year. In 2024, those numbers have completely exploded, and he is playing his best football yet.
In 2021 and 2022, he had 11 quarterbacks. That rose to 13 in 2023, but this season, Odighizuwa already has 23. That is an absurd number for a defensive tackle.
He has also tied his career high in sacks with two games to go, he is nearing a new personal record for total tackles, and his odds of becoming a first-time Pro Bowl player are gaining momentum.
If this Cowboys’ offseason includes an extension for Odighizuwa, it will be a costly one that likely takes them out of the running for Lewis.
With Odighizuwa only being 26, teams could commit a 4-5-year deal to him and still see good performances at the end of the contract. That’s a luxury for teams, and one that often drives up the price.
In short, the money he could get is big-time; could that take Dallas out of the bidding for their star defensive tackle?
The Bottom Line
There is a question that answers both Jourdan Lewis and Osa Odighizuwa’s contractual futures in Dallas: how much are the Jones’s willing to spend in the 2025 offseason?
No matter what they say to the media, they do have the money for one of these guys, if not both, depending on the market for Lewis. It is more so about committing large sums of money to players not named Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, and Micah Parsons.
If they feel comfortable, and can both pay those top-tier stars and retain the guys a slot below, they’ll get one of these guys back.
After all, the defense may rely on the presence of these two emerging stars.