The Dallas Cowboys' offseason has been up and down.
The Cowboys lost big-name players like Randy Gregory and Amari Cooper, but re-signed the likes of Michael Gallup, Leighton Vander Esch and Malik Hooker, franchise-tagged Dalton Schultz and added James Washington in free agency.
Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones noted Tuesday on 105.3 The Fan that the club isn't "done yet in free agency," but highlighted that even the future additions -- including in next week's draft -- wouldn't make or break the team.
"I don't think you ever win the Super Bowl in the offseason," Jones said. "I think it's a full body of work that you put together over time. I think we'll be a better team and I think we can take the next step."
Jones is correct. There is no hardware won in March and April. But a team can certainly hurt its chances at a championship in both the present and future by making lousy offseason moves.
Jones added that some of the Cowboys' decisions this offseason were still making up for the lower-than-projected salary cap the previous two seasons due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I wouldn't call (the offseason) exhausting," he said. "It's a challenge, it's work. A lot that went into it mainly because of the unique situation of the last two years with the pandemic and how it affected the salary cap in terms of not having its natural, if you will, increase each year. You weren't able to project that. You knew that the cap was not going to be naturally going up as you normally build into your contracts. So, consequently, we had to really step back and be conservative, if you will, in terms of signing extensions to players. The other thing that played into that was a new coaching staff coming in.
"So there were some challenges that aren't normally there that kept us from signing extensions to players we might normally would have, as well as having the challenge to make some tough decisions because the cap didn't necessarily project as high as we would've thought pre-pandemic."
With Dak Prescott on offense and reigning Defensive Rookie of the Year Micah Parsons on defense, the Cowboys still have the horses to be a playoff team in a winnable NFC East, even with some significant losses this offseason.