The Dallas Cowboys have been one of the most disappointing teams in the NFL this season. Dallas is 7-9 heading into Week 18 and has significantly underperformed compared to their preseason expectations. It certainly didn’t help when QB Dak Prescott suffered a season-ending injury.

The Cowboys have a number of issues right now, including their salary cap management and additional injuries on top of Prescott’s. Cowboys CEO and executive vice president Stephen Jones spoke honestly about those problems during a recent radio interview.

“I’ll say it again, it’s the world’s smallest violin, but unfortunately we have over 50 percent of our cap on (injured reserve),” Jones said on Monday via The Athletic’s Jon Machota. “Those things, when they hit and hit at the wrong time, it makes for a challenge for a team. Obviously, San Francisco is another team that’s had their share of injuries this year in terms of a big percentage of their cap sitting on IR. Those are things that come with the territory.”

Jones compared Dallas’ current situation with other teams, including Philadelphia and San Francisco. He also provided some examples of players whose contracts make the Cowboys’ situation particularly difficult.

“I know everybody has their different battles with the cap that hit at different times,” Jones continued. “Philly will have theirs coming up where they’ll have to make tough decisions. But, yeah, we’re constantly looking at ways to look at our salary cap to give us the best opportunity with players like Dak (Prescott), CeeDee (Lamb) and Micah (Parsons), and you throw (Trevon) Diggs in there, to let those guys hopefully, No. 1, stay on the field, but No. 2, give us the best opportunity to make a great run.”

There may not be a ton of cap relief coming in the future for the Cowboys. However, they can at least hope to stay healthier next season.

Micah Parsons explains how Cowboys can rebound in 2025 after poor 2024 season

It sounds like Cowboys linebacker Micah Parsons had a similar idea.

Parsons spoke about what needs to happen with the Cowboys to improve their record in 2025. He spoke about injuries as one area the team can improve.

“One, we’re gonna have to get healthy,” Parasons said on Sunday, via Jon Machota. “I mean, we got three or four starters who aren’t coming back until mid next season. We got to plan for that, we got to get healthy. We got to keep coming together.”

Parsons himself is one of those Cowboys players who missed time due to injury. Parsons suffered a high-ankle sprain in Week 4 and missed more than a month of action during his recovery. During that time, the Cowboys imploded and the season went off the rails. That is not just due to Parsons’ injury, but it does help illustrate his point about preparing for injuries on a team level.

It will be interesting to see which moves the Cowboys make this offseason to address their depth. But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.

Next up for the Cowboys is their regular season finale against the Commanders.