The Dallas Cowboys are one of the most popular sports franchises in the world. No one gets more hype than Dallas. They have won five Superbowls in January/February and about 20 more Superbowl in August. But, are the Cowboys on the verge of blowing up the team? Explanation after the jump.

The Dallas Cowboys salary cap as of right now is $136 million, which is a whopping 16 mil more than the estimated 120 mil salary cap once the CBAis finalized this week. Keep in mind that the Cowboys are already $16 mil over the limit before resigning current players and signing draft picks.

Bottom line, Jerry Jones is going to have to trim a lot of fat.

Most Cowboys' fans will tell you that once they cut Roy Williams and Marion Barber's salaries that everything will be under control. That is completely false. Roy Williams will be due $5.1 mil in 2011 and Marion Barber $4.25. So after releasing two complete bums off the books, the Cowboys are about $7 million over the cap.

The Cowboys still have to sign rookie Tyron Smithand resign Doug Free. There have been rumors that Marc Colombo would be a cap casualty as well, although he would only be due $1.9 mil with a $500K roster bonus.

The Cowboys are a pretty good team, on paper. They have a handful of really good player like Tony Romo(good in regular season), DeMarcus Ware, Jay Ratliff, Dez Bryant, Jason Whitten and Felix Jones. The problem with Dallas is once you get past those players, the rest of the team is mediocre at best. The secondary didn't just take a step backward in 2010, they took about twenty.

The offensive line wasn't much better either and with the possibility of losing two starters from last year(Doug Free and Marc Colombo) it could be a lot worse in 2011. It's very possible that Alex "never a bad time to commit a dumb penalty" Barron and rookie Tyron Smith  will be their starting offensive tackles.

When you look beyond the hype and the handful of Pro Bowl caliber players, the Cowboys are not a good football team. They need to insert some talented young players in the secondary and offensive line. Good thing the Cowboys drafted plenty of defensive backs, whoops. Jerry Jones did draft one, Josh Thomas, a 5th round pick out of Buffalo.

How is a secondary supposed to improve over 2010 when they didn't draft any instant impact players and will have no money for free agency?

Jerry Jones has to think about stocking up on draft picks and realizing that the current makeup of this team isn't as good as his fans think it is. The worst thing a front office can do in a situation like this is deny that the team need severely upgraded.