The Dallas Cowboys got a bit of bad news on Friday, learning they’ll have even more work to do in order to be compliant with the 2026 salary cap. At the end of January, the NFL announced the expected range of the cap was between $301.2 million and $305.7 million. The league does this every year, providing a range for their teams to begin to sketch out their offseason plans.
Normally, the official number that arrives several weeks later is at least at the midpoint, and occasionally on the high end of the range. Not for 2026. On Friday, the league announced that the low-end of the range would hold, and the salary cap is being set at $301.2 million.
NFL clubs were informed today that the salary cap for the ’26 season will jump $22 million per club to $301.2 million. Add in another $77.6m in benefits & that’s $378.8m per club in player spending. Tremendous growth pic.twitter.com/cQ5Zf3aGVW
— Brian McCarthy (@NFLprguy) February 27, 2026
With OverTheCap and Spotrac, the two most renown cap sites around landing in the estimated range of $303.5 million, expected cap space has centered around that projection. This means that each club’s relative space, including that of the Dallas Cowboys, will be brought down.
After placing the franchise tag on George Pickens earlier on Friday, the Cowboys were expected to be $55.4 million over the cap, with the start of the league year now 13 days away. That number is now up another $2.3 million, to $57.7 million.
Dallas of course has plenty of ways to manage this number, so an addition $2.3 million isn’t a huge deal, but that is still two veteran minimum signings that they will have to do without, or at least make additional accomodations for.
This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: NFL sets official cap number at $301.2M, costing Cowboys 2 vet deals