Some Dallas Cowboys players were either borderline or likely to be 2025 salary cap victims even before the season started. Their fortunes in the approaching summer are being decided in front of our eyes as Dallas struggles overall, with several of these players contributing to their issues.
Players who still have years left on their contracts but are released because the team believes that relief from the salary cap is more valuable than the player’s contributions are known as cap casualties. Therefore, this would not apply to players like DE DeMarcus Lawrence and G Zack Martin, who have contracts that expire after this season. For 2025, both players are in doubt as
Who, then, appears to be a 2025 cap casualty, and how does their season-to-date performance support that prediction?
OT Steele, Terence
The veteran right tackle has arguably been worse than rookie Tyler Guyton, who has had his share of problems on the left side. Steele has never fully recovered from his knee injury in 2022. He was improving in the latter part of 2023, but it appears that he has regressed since then, which is unfortunate for him given his contract.
In 2025, Dallas will be able to release Steele outright for $4.6 million in cap reduction. That figure rises to $14 million if they declare him a June 1st cut.
That is a sizable sum of money that may be used for other team needs, like signing their rookie class, or for Micah Parsons’ anticipated contract extension. To avoid throwing dead money into 2026, the Cowboys could simply decide to cut him outright, which would still leave them a healthy $4.6 million to work with during the offseason.
In any case, Steele is becoming less and less appealing as a future option due to his growing liability as a starter. The Cowboys can fix that in the offseason, even though they do not currently have a player on the roster that feels like their RT of the future. Steele’s stay in Dallas is unlikely to last past Week unless he has a significant change of heart in the second half of 2024.
Hooker S. Malik S. Donovan Wilson
Given that their contracts and performance are similar, let us discuss the beginning safety measures together. Hooker and Wilson, who are currently ranked among the NFL’s worst starting safetymen, have gone from being reliable under Dan Quinn to being serious flaws in Mike Zimmer’s scheme.
