How the Cowboys might be taking a page out of the Vikings playbook

2025 might usher in a new era for the Dallas Cowboys

Following the conclusion of the 2021 season, the Minnesota Vikings underwent a thorough regime change. Out were longtime general manager Rick Spielman and head coach Mike Zimmer. Taking control of the ship was Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, an analytics wunderkind who had helped guide successful roster-building strategies for both the 49ers and Browns. Adofo-Mensah started off by conducting a wide-ranging head coach search that ultimately landed on Kevin O’Connell.

The Vikings were in a bit of a pickle at the moment. They had a significant financial commitment to quarterback Kirk Cousins and a roster that was largely competitive – they had just finished a “disappointing” 8-9 campaign and were two years removed from winning a playoff game – but Minnesota was also far from being a contender. It would be difficult to blow everything up and rebuild, and equally difficult to further enhance the roster to elevate them to contenders.

Adofo-Mensah coined the phrase “competitive rebuild” right out the gate. In short, he wasn’t going to blow everything up but was also going to pursue avenues to increase the team’s salary cap flexibility for the future. It’s an uncommon approach in the NFL, and one that has presented plenty of challenges:

“It’s a little riskier than tearing everything down and being bad for a while and coming back up,” Adofo-Mensah said. “I know that. I can tell you the mathematical probability of doing it that way. And that’s the way other teams may have chosen, but that’s not the way we’re trying to do it.”

Things got off to a great start, though. The Vikings went 13-4 in the first year under Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell, though many analysts with a similar data-driven background to the general manager pointed out the statistical irregularities of the team. Regression came early, as Minnesota was upset by the Giants in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. Then, they started out 1-4 in 2023 and ultimately finished 7-10 in a season that featured Cousins rupturing his Achilles halfway through the year.

That brings the Vikings to today, where they’re a little closer to that reset button. Cousins left in free agency and, while the Vikings did make an attempt to re-sign him, it didn’t quite compare to the full court press the Falcons used to land the quarterback. Now, less than a week from the draft, Minnesota has $16.6 million in cap space – that puts them right in the middle of the league – and they’re projected to have over $102 million for next year. An impending extension for Justin Jefferson would alter that figure, of course, but Minnesota has plenty of flexibility with the salary cap.

On top of that, they’re preparing to land their new franchise quarterback, too. They’re picking 11th overall, but a trade that netted them the 23rd pick now gives them the ammunition to trade into the top five and select one of these quarterbacks, something they’re widely expected to do. Under the analytically inclined Adofo-Mensah, the Vikings have managed to net a playoff berth while also stocking the cupboard for the foreseeable future – provided, of course, that their draft picks work out.

What does all this have to do with the Cowboys, you ask? It may very well be the same approach that Dallas is taking right now. Last offseason, following the draft, the Cowboys brought in a handful of new hires to man their analytics department. Will McClay, the Cowboys’ draft guru for the last decade, is known to be analytically inclined and now has the team behind him to embrace data on a level this team hasn’t done before.

The Cowboys have also taken some curious approaches to this offseason, even for them. Dak Prescott seems poised to play on the final year of his contract, while CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons have had little traction in their own contract negotiations. Mike McCarthy will coach into the final year of his contract, while newly hired defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer only signed a one-year deal.

The Cowboys figure to have a good roster in 2024, currently with the seventh best odds to win the Super Bowl according to DraftKings, but they’ve won 12 games each of the last three years and have little to show for it. If the Cowboys fail to make much noise in the playoffs for a fourth straight season, they could do what the Vikings are currently doing: start the reset with little trouble.

That would mean letting Prescott walk and bringing in a new coaching staff. Lamb and Parsons could also find themselves playing elsewhere, though that seems unlikely. Similar to Minnesota, Dallas is currently projected to have $100.6 million in cap space in 2025, offering them plenty of financial flexibility. They also still hold all of their original draft picks in 2025, and could potentially add to that cache with some maneuvers on this upcoming draft weekend.

Naturally, the Cowboys don’t want to blow it all up. Like most fans, they would love to see Prescott and McCarthy lead this team to a sixth Super Bowl ring. But if this current iteration of the Cowboys keeps running into the same problem, Dallas has set themselves up nicely to usher in a new era while having plenty of cap space to build a competitive roster in short notice.

Only time will tell if that’s the path this team ultimately opts into, but in the meantime it might be wise for Cowboys fans to pay attention to how the Vikings operate from here on out.