Dallas Cowboys make full use of NFL’s 90-man roster limit - and then some

Here is a first look at the Dallas Cowboys first unofficial 95-man roster.

Each NFL team is allowed a maximum of 90 players under contract on its offseason roster right now. The Cowboys technically have 77 players under contract on their roster right now, but if they sign their nine draft picks and nine UDFA players, they’d be at 95 total players. One of those 95 players, DT Denzel Daxon, is an International Pathway Player and doesn’t count against the total, but that still leaves the Cowboys with four players that need to be cut over the coming days.

And even then, the roster will continue to change over the coming weeks and months, and because the Cowboys will be maxed out against the 90-player limit, every single new signing will have to be accompanied by a corresponding player being released who is currently on the roster.

In total, the 95 Cowboys players are comprised as follows:

• 54 players returning from last season
• 10 players signed as free agents in the the end of last season
• 3 player brought in via trade
• 9 rookies drafted in the 2025 NFL draft
• 9 players signed to reserve/future contracts earlier this year.
• 9 college free agents recruited over the last few days.
• 1 player on the IPP program who doesn’t count against the 90-man roster limit

Here’s how the roster currently stands, keeping in mind that this first roster iteration of 2025 may already be slightly outdated by the time you read this.

One interesting dynamic highlighted by the table above: With a regular-season roster limit of 53 players and 54 players returning from 2024 (on the left side of the table) basically every new addition to the team (on the right side of the table) will have to beat out a returning player for a roster spot on the final 53.

And so the 2025 season begins.