The Dallas Cowboys always have some of the most fascinating storylines in the NFL, but heading into 2024, it’s almost impossible to predict what Jerry Jones and company have planned.

If you listen to Jones, he’s sticking by his statement that Dallas is going “all in” for 2024 with the goal to finally get over the playoff hump and secure another Lombardi Trophy.

That logic made sense following the Cowboys’ early exit from the playoffs. They had a team loaded with talent on both sides of the ball and their franchise QB Dak Prescott, was leading the MVP conversation for most of the year and finished 2023 with one of his best statistical seasons as a pro. The Dallas Cowboys were undefeated at home and entered the playoffs as a No. 2 seed.

But as anyone with a pulse has come to expect, Dallas choked in the first round of the playoffs, falling to a young Green Bay Packers team who barely snuck into the postseason.

There were questions whether Jerry Jones would make significant moves after the loss, but he didn’t. He retained head coach Mike McCarthy for 2024 and made it clear Prescott was the team’s QB moving forward.

Almost every NFL Insider predicted the Dallas Cowboys would give Prescott a contract extension to free up cap space and add new talent in free agency — but instead — Jones hasn’t done a thing and is letting Dak Prescott play out the final year of his contract.

The team has lost several coaches including defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, who took several assistants with him to the Cowboys’ rival, Washington, when he accepted the head coaching job there.

Beyond coaches, Dallas is expected to replace some of its top playmakers on both sides of the ball. One of the most glaring need is a running back to fill the void left by Tony Pollard who signed with the Tennessee Titans.

For a while, the Titans’ former running back Derrick Henry was floated as the perfect fit for Dallas, but reports said the Cowboys didn’t even contact the backfield bruiser before he ultimately signed with the Baltimore Ravens.

Why exactly?

Dallas Cowboys Reveal Why They Didn’t Pursue Derrick Henry In Free Agency

As of now,  one of the biggest offseason moves the Cowboys have made is to bring back fan favorite Ezekiel Elliott, who looks like he may get the bulk of the carries along with a few young running backs on the roster in 2024.

Elliott is definitely past his best-before date, but the soon-to-be 29-year-old showed in New England last year that he can still be a productive role player.

As the No. 2 RB in New England behind Rhamondre Stevenson, Elliott still posted 955 yards of offense and five touchdowns. Those numbers are especially admirable when you consider how awful the New England offense was a year ago.

Elliott is still one of the best pass-blocking running backs in the game, and he had 12 rushing touchdowns for the Dallas Cowboys just two years ago. He’s still reliable in goal-to-go situations and will boost locker room morale as the Cowboys try to bounce back from another humiliating and early postseason exit.

Henry is coming off a season where he rushed for 1,167 yards for a total of 12 touchdowns in 2023. The bruising tailback has rushed for at least 1,000 yards in five of the six last seasons for the Titans, including a jaw-dropping performance in 2020 where he surpassed the 2,000-yard mark.

This feels like exactly the kind of player Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys brass would target as they attempt to win another Super Bowl, but according to a recent report, they felt like the salary cap issues facing the team in regards to its three biggest stars held them back from making the move.

“Our situation is just, you know, and no one ever wants to say it, but it’s salary cap, and we just didn’t have the money to allocate to that position in terms of where we were from a cap standpoint, knowing what we’re looking at with Dak and certainly Micah and CeeDee Lamb,” Stephen Jones said on Sirius XM Radio.

“We just didn’t have those type of resources to allocate to that position or we probably would’ve already had it filled with Tony Pollard.”