Cowboys have several rising players among 2025 restricted free agents
While there’s still a lot to do before 2025 free agency, now is the time for players to make their cases for new contracts. The Dallas Cowboys have four guys due to become restricted free agents next March: KaVontae Turpin, Juanyeh Thomas, Brock Hoffman, and Markquese Bell. They all have roles on the team now and some are growing by the week.
As a reminder, restricted free agency occurs when a player has only three accrued seasons in the NFL. This gives his current team some leverage in keeping him; a one-year RFA tender that pays the player a set amount and would cost any other team that signs him a corresponding draft pick. The RFA tender amounts for 2025 are not official until the next salary cap figure is released, but here is one projection:
- First-round pick – $7.28 million
- Second-round pick – $5.22 million
- First refusal – $3.19 million
For example, let’s say Dallas applied the second-round tender to Turpin. Another team could sign him but would have to give the Cowboys a second-round pick in exchange. That would effectively secure Turpin as part of Dallas’ 2025 roster for a one-year amount of $5.22 million, which isn’t unreasonable for the best return man in football.
There is another RFA tender for original draft pick compensation, which is generally just a little bit more expensive than the right of first refusal. But none of the four players that we’ve mentioned were drafted, so Dallas would either have to go with the first-refusal option or jump straight to the second-round pick.
Where this gets interesting is that this year, all four players are making below $1 million. So just the first-refusal tender would be a significant bump for the players and the Cowboys’ salary cap. Whether or not Dallas wants to keep the players at triple the cost, if not higher, depends on their projected roles.
As we just mentioned, Turpin has already become arguably the NFL’s top return specialist and is starting to show up in Dallas’ offense. Keeping him at around $3 million would seem an easy choice, and you could make a case for the $5 million amount if he’s going to have an offensive role. Assuming there’s a regime change on offense next year, the next coach may have some influence on how much value the team places in retaining Turpin.
Brock Hoffman has had some strong games recently starting at right guard for the injured Zack Martin. Whether it’s through retirement or a free agency departure, Martin probably isn’t coming back in 2025. Hoffman makes sense to retain as a competitor for jobs at guard and center or to be a versatile backup to both positions. Paying him $3 million as your key interior line backup wouldn’t be cheap but also far from unreasonable.
The two safeties are interesting because of the statuses of the two current starters. Neither Malik Hooker nor Donovan Wilson have been consistently effective this season. You could release both of them for a combined $9.1 million, which would more than pay to retain both Juanyeh Thomas and Markquese Bell on the lowest RFA tenders. Even the $5.35 million saved by cutting Wilson alone would nearly cover it, and that’s a pretty solid “two for the price of one” proposition when it comes to roster building.
Thomas will miss at least 2-3 weeks with a knee injury suffered in the win over New York. He’s already established himself as a potential starter; some have argued he should already be one over one of the veterans. His absence shouldn’t hurt his stock.
These aren’t nearly the financial burdens that Dallas has faced with contracts for the likes of Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb, and Micah Parsons. But we’ve seen all of these players have significant moments in recent years and reason to think they could be deserving of bigger roles going forward. But restricted free agency could still mean big jumps in their salary cap hits, so you know the Cowboys will be judicious. What they do now over the rest of 2024 will impact those decisions.