After the Dallas Cowboys had a disappointing ending to their 12-5 season where they lost in what some consider to be an embarrassing fashion to the Green Bay Packers in the wild card round by a score of 48-32 when they were originally seven-point favorites according to FanDuel. Many of them expected them to at least the NFC Championship Game which they had not been to since the 1995 NFL Season where they won their 5th and last Super Bowl.
The first move they made was controversially keeping Mike McCarthy as the Cowboys Head Coach. The media and fans expected Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to fire McCarthy after the underwhelming result.
McCarthy had an impressive record of 42-25 and went 12-5 the previous 3 seasons but went 1-3 in the postseason. Jerry Jones said “I don’t need to disrupt the offseason to get better results in 2024.
After the result of the game weeks later Dan Quinn the highly sought defensive coordinator for the Cowboys decided to leave them for the Head Coaching Position with the division rival Washington Commanders.
Quinn also took many of the Cowboys defensive staff the most important being Joe White Jr who was Dallas’ secondary coach and hired him as the defensive coordinator for the Commanders.
With Quinn Leaving they had to search for a new defensive coordinator eventually they decided on Mike Zimmer.
Zimmer had previously been the head coach for the Minnesota Vikings back in 2021 where he was the head coach there for 9 seasons but was fired. Mike Zimmer has some pats history with the Cowboys he had been with the cowboys from 1994-2006 working multiple coaching jobs. Those coaching jobs being Defensive assistant/nickel (1994). Defensive backs coach (1995–1999) and Defensive coordinator (2000–2006).
Going into free agency Jerry Jones made a bold statement saying, “were going all in”. This gave Cowboys fans hope that Jones would finally splurge in free agency and in the trade market which is out of character for Jones. But fans were left disappointed. Many of the top free agents were gone and Dallas did not make their first free agency signing until March 15th when they signed Erick Kendricks a linebacker who was previously worked under Zimmer with the Vikings.
Dallas lost some key free agents this offseason, those being Tony Pollard who signed with the Tennessee Titans and was the leading rusher for the Cowboys in 2023.
Dorance Armstrong signed with Seattle Tyler Biadz signed with the Commanders to reunite with former Cowboys coach Dan Quinn. Most importantly they lost Stephon Gilmore who became the de facto CB number 1 after Trevon Diggs got a season ending injury, went to the Minnesota Vikings.
Dak Prescott has yet to sign a contract extension as of September 4th but is still expected to play week 1 vs The Browns. Where the Cowboys are 2.5-point underdogs on the road according to FanDuel.
