Cowboys restructure contracts for Prescott, Lamb, Smith to get under salary cap

In a very expected but vitally important bit of paperwork, the Cowboys have officially restructured the contracts of quarterback Dak Prescott , offensive lineman Tyler Smith , and wide receiver CeeDee Lamb .

The Prescott and Smith news comes from ESPN NFL insiders Adam Schefter and Field Yates and was announced Wednesday morning in a post on X. The network's Todd Archer followed up shortly thereafter with an update to include Lamb.

As with any restructure, it's important to point out that the Cowboys' accounting moves here do not change a player's overall compensation; none of them "took a hometown discount" to help the club. In fact, a player doesn't have to agree to a restructure or even be told in advance that it's happening. The move merely converts base salary to signing bonus money, and that changes the team's salary cap figure for the coming league year.

For the Cowboys, a few strokes of the pen took the organization from roughly $56 million over the cap to about $10 million under, making them fully cap-compliant with a week still to go before the start of the new league year.

The front office will need to create even more cap room as free agency approaches, especially with owner Jerry Jones suggesting that Dallas will be more aggressive in signing veteran players as they chase a sixth Lombardi Trophy.

But Wednesday's long-anticipated moves were a critical step.

Todd is on X at @ToddBrock24f7 . Also, follow Cowboys Wire on Facebook to join in on the conversation with fellow fans!

This article originally appeared on Cowboys Wire: Cowboys restructure 3 major contracts to get under '26 salary cap