Like every other Dallas Cowboys rookie, Charles Alston will have to earn the star on the side of his helmet, under Bill Parcells' new and symbolic decree for first-year players.

	Undrafted bonuses
	According to NFL Players Association records, teams have signed 433 undrafted free agents and invested $1.969 million in signing bonus, or $61,546 per team. Here is a look at how many undrafted players each team signed and the total spent on bonuses:
	Team	No. signed	Total bonuses
	San Diego	27	$182,500
	Cleveland	22	$133,500
	Indianapolis	21	$130,500
	Minnesota	13	$129,500
	Dallas	12	$109,000
	Arizona	11	$85,000
	Detroit	17	$78,000
	S.F.	19	$77,250
	Tennessee	34	$73,500
	Miami	12	$73,000
	Philadelphia	23	$70,750
	Carolina	7	$66,500
	Jacksonville	11	$65,000
	Pittsburgh	20	$65,000
	Green Bay	9	$59,000
	Seattle	8	$56,500
	Washington	13	$53,000
	Atlanta	14	$49,000
	N.Y. Jets	20	$44,700
	Chicago	15	$43,500
	Cincinnati	12	$42,500
	N.Y. Giants	4	$41,500
	Oakland	9	$38,500
	Tampa Bay	13	$37,000
	New Orleans	10	$35,000
	Kansas City	5	$28,000
	Buffalo	8	$27,000
	Denver	3	$22,000
	Houston	6	$21,000
	New England	18	$13,000
	Baltimore	15	$11,000
	St. Louis	5	$7,500

But just securing a spot in summer training camp, and having banked the largest signing bonus check paid out by an NFL franchise this spring, is a quantum leap for the itinerant defensive end. And that the Cowboys outhustled a dozen other teams in the minutes after the draft concluded, and invested $25,000 in upfront money, reinforces the notion that the former Bowie State (Md.) star has some viable opportunity to beat the lengthy odds and to actually earn a regular-season roster spot.

"It was fast and furious," recalled agent Kevin Pompey of the bidding for Alston, "but the Cowboys offered the best situation for him. Even if you remove the dollar factor from it, and looked at the rosters of the teams to whom we spoke, it was a good place for him."

And it didn't hurt that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones took a personal role in the recruitment of the still-raw defensive end, making the initial contact with Pompey in the late stages of the draft, and then negotiating a deal that paid Alston a signing bonus larger than some of this year's seventh-round draft choices will receive.

A long and lean pass rusher, whose college career featured stops at three different schools after initially matriculating at Marshall in 1997, Alston is one of just three undrafted free agents to garner signing bonuses of $20,000 or more this year. The others were offensive lineman Ben Archibald of Brigham Young, who got $22,500 to sign with San Francisco, and former Tennessee State tight end Steve Farmer, awarded a $20,000 signing bonus by the Minnesota Vikings.

All three players signed three-year contracts.

In all, there were 56 undrafted free agents this year who received signing bonus payments of at least $10,000, and 15 of them earned $15,000 or more in upfront money. The figures are gleaned from an NFL Players Association survey of undrafted free agents.

Not all of them have their uniforms prominently displayed in the college football Hall of Fame, as does the rangy Alston, who is believed to be the lone player in the modern era to have appeared in a football game and basketball game on the same day. But the group is indicative of a trend this year, in which teams have signed fewer free agents, but paid them more in signing bonus money than a year ago.

Teams combined to sign 433 undrafted rookies this spring, a 20 percent decrease from a year ago, when 541 free agents received contracts. But for those players who received upfront money, the average signing bonus of $5,089 represented a 7.7 percent bump over 2002. In addition, a much higher percentage of free agent signees in '03 received signing bonuses, 89.4 percent of them. The 2002 figure was 78.6 percent.

As is typically the case, signing bonuses for undrafted free agents were awarded far more on potential, much less on college profile. Quarterback Brad Banks, the Heisman Trophy finalist from the University of Iowa, received a bonus of just $1,000 to go to camp with the Washington Redskins this summer. The Jacksonville Jaguars paid former University of Miami center Brett Romberg $10,000. Terrence Edwards, the most prolific receiver in the history of Georgia football, got $8,500 from the Atlanta Falcons.

Conversely, not many fans outside of Bowie State's tiny campus, between Washington, D.C., and Annapolis, or his own family, knew much about Alston. But scouts like his movement skills, and his power forward toughness, and he was athletic enough to play in 2001 for a hoops team that went to the Division II Final Four in 2002. The feeling is that Alston, who had 14 sacks in his final two seasons, can become a solid rush threat if he can adequately develop his football abilities.

At just under 6-feet-5, and weighing in now at 282 pounds, teams were willing to invest on Alston's future, and that is why he was so coveted after the draft.

"What we had in general," opined one NFC owner at last week's league meetings, "was the old law of supply and demand. Yeah, there weren't as many spots (available for) free agents, but there also weren't as many (prospects) left at the end of the draft, either. So the price tags went up a little bit."

That was obviously the case for Parcells and Jones, who were particularly aggressive and generous as well, in pursuing free agents. Dallas was one of the four franchises that spent more than $100,000 each on signing bonuses for their free agents. The Cowboys signed a dozen free agents, just under the NFL average of 13.5, but all 12 receiving some upfront money and the signing bonuses averaged a lofty $9,083.

"That (undrafted free agent) market is something to which we always pay attention," said Jones last week. "Our track record has been very good. We don't take it for granted. Our approach is, we can usually find a player or two from among (the undrafted free agents)."

There is certainly a wide disparity in how franchises approach the market for undrafted free agents. The Denver Broncos characteristically fill out roster spots with minimum-salary veterans, and sign very few undrafted players, and that was the case again this year, with just three free agents. In fact, 10 teams signed fewer than 10 free agents each this year.

No team spent more on signing bonuses than the San Diego Chargers, who doled out a whopping $182,500 for 27 free agents, awarding signing bonus money to all of them. On the flip side, the Tennessee Titans signed a league-high 34 undrafted players, but invested just $73,500 in signing bonuses. The New York Giants signed just four undrafted players but doled out nearly as much in signing bonus money as the New York Jets, who added 20 players after the draft.

Fourteen teams failed to award a single signing bonus of five figures, but the Cowboys and Vikings combined for 15 signing bonuses of $10,000 or more. Among those teams that acquired at least 10 free agents, the Vikings paid average upfront money of $9,962, the highest in the league.

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.