Some NFL teams draft a plan. Others have one handed to them. When the Las Vegas Raiders shipped Maxx Crosby to the Baltimore Ravens, the Cowboys’ blueprint seemed obvious. Pivot to Cincinnati’s Trey Hendrickson for an obvious, clean, and logical move. Except it’s not exactly going that way.

With Crosby off the board, multiple analysts predicted Hendrickson would be the next call. The Cincinnati Bengals edge rusher led the league with 17.5 sacks in the 2024 season and enters free agency as the most sought-after pass rusher on the market. For a Cowboys defense that ranked 251.5 yards allowed per game, scoring (30.1 points allowed per game), and managed just 31 sacks in 2025, the fit looked automatic. But NFL insider James Palmer quickly complicated that narrative.

“The Cowboys will pivot toward other pass rushers in free agency,” Palmer wrote on X. “there are some I think they like. I’m not entirely sure Trey Hendrickson is one of those. Won’t rule anything out, but I get a sense their eyes are elsewhere.”

ESPN’s Todd Archer offered a similar perspective, noting there will be other options for Dallas to look into.

“With Maxx Crosby off the market, where do the Cowboys turn their attention to for a pass rusher?” Archer wrote. “Trey Hendrickson? Maybe, but there will be other options to consider.”

Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys made a genuinely aggressive push for Crosby. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Dallas had offered a first and second-round pick, only for Baltimore to outbid them with two first-rounders. Just like that, their most aggressively targeted pass-rush solution slipped through their fingers.

Now, what makes the hesitation truly notable is his numbers. Sure, he missed most of 2025 due to injury, but his back-to-back 17.5 sack seasons in 2023 and 2024 define his market value, as well as the price tag.

Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones has been vocal all offseason about changing Dallas’ spending habits. “Bust the budget” became his rallying cry at the NFL Combine, backed by deliberate front-office restructuring to clear cap space. The urgency is real, too. Jadeveon Clowney, their top edge rusher last season, is a free agent with no guarantee of returning.

The price tag on Hendrickson may also be the blunt explanation. Contract projections put his deal at $84 to $99 million over three years. In contrast, Dallas’ combined free agency spending from 2020 through 2025 was around $54.75 million, the lowest total in the league. Signing Hendrickson alone would surpass five full years of accumulated investments. Even a budget-busting Jerry Jones would have his limits.

Trey Hendrickson’s 81 career sacks do sound tempting. But his financial ceiling, real or projected, now pushes Dallas toward a different hunt, built on surgical value over marquee names.

Options on the table beyond Trey Hendrickson

The Dallas Cowboys don’t really lack candidates for their pass rush. Arnold Ebiketie, a 2022 second-round pick out of Penn State who spent four seasons with the Atlanta Falcons, posted six sacks in both 2023 and 2024 before losing snaps to Atlanta’s revamped pass rush corps. As a free agent in Dallas, away from that competition, he could reclaim the output that made him a legitimate prospect.

Boye Mafe, meanwhile, brings some serious pass-rush pedigree of his own. The Seattle Seahawks linebacker racked up nine sacks in 2023 and six more in 2024. His production dropped to two sacks in a reserve role last season. On a prove-it deal, the upside from his peak seasons could be worth the risk for a team hungry for edge-rush depth. 

Then there’s also Bradley Chubb, the fifth overall pick in 2018, who bounced back from a missed 2024 season with 8.5 sacks for the Miami Dolphins in 2025 before he got released. A former top-five draft pick available at a discount is exactly the calculated upside Jerry Jones could bet on.

The Cowboys stand at a fork in the road. Maxx Crosby is no longer an option. Trey Hendrickson looks increasingly unlikely. But Jones has promised action and has cleared the books to deliver on it. For now, it’s his moment of truth as the legal tampering window opens Monday, March 9.