The Dallas Cowboys restructured the contract of All-Pro linebacker Sean Lee on Tuesday to free up a little more than $5 million in salary-cap space.
The restructure was expected considering the Cowboys had only about $3.2 million in cap space _ less than every other team in the league _ heading into the start of free agency at 3 p.m. Thursday, according to the NFL Players Association.
The Cowboys now have about $8.5 million in salary cap space to work with as free agency is set to begin Thursday. The Cowboys were able to get under the league's $167 million salary cap by restructuring the contracts of All-Pro offensive linemen Tyron Smith and Travis Frederick two weeks ago.
Lee, 30, is coming off of his best season with the Cowboys and is signed through 2019.
Despite the additional cap space, don't expect the Cowboys to be very active in free agency this week. They have 18 unrestricted free agents of their own and the priority is to re-sign a few of those before looking outside.
