MINNEAPOLIS -- The Dallas Cowboys' offensive line that the Minnesota Vikings will try to crack Thursday night is, by coach Mike Zimmer's estimation, "the best line I've seen in the NFL in a long time." The group has facilitated Ezekiel Elliott's dynamic rookie season with SUV-sized holes in opposing fronts while providing fellow rookie Dak Prescott with decent pass protection that has mostly kept him out of trouble.

The group is a foundational element to the Cowboys' rise in 2016. It's also a reminder that oftentimes in the NFL, you get what you pay for.

The Cowboys are reaping the benefits of roster-building decisions they made in the early part of the decade, when they invested three first-round picks in offensive linemen from 2011 to 2014. Long caricatured as a team driven by the headline-grabbing whims of owner Jerry Jones, the Cowboys targeted players who played in pro-style offenses for blue-chip college programs. They took USC tackle Tyron Smith ninth overall in 2011, selected Wisconsin center Travis Frederick with the 31st pick in 2013 and passed on Johnny Manziel to select Notre Dame guard Zack Martin with the 16th choice in 2014.

The Cowboys had the second-best rushing attack in the league in 2014. They finished ninth in 2015 after letting DeMarco Murray go and are back up to second this season with Elliott.

"We made a commitment to it, and that's something we needed to do," Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said Sunday. "When I first became the head coach [in 2010], we were at a point with our team where we had a lot of veteran guys who had been good players for a long time, but we had to start bringing some youth in, so we made some hard decisions there, and then we allocated resources. We felt like it was important to rebuild the offensive line to play the style of football we wanted to play, which is a physical style where we control the line of scrimmage, run the football and have balance on offense. We felt like that would have a positive impact, not only on the rest of our offense but on our team. Any success we have offensively starts with those guys up front."

The Cowboys' offensive line is opening up huge holes for Ezekiel Elliott, the NFL's leading rusher. George Walker/Icon Sportswire

Those choices formed the bedrock of a line that's almost universally regarded as the league's best. And for now, the group remains one of the league's cheapest, with the Cowboys' total line cost of $21.4 million, ranking 21st in the league. Is there a lesson in there for the Vikings, who've sought to improve their line play for the better part of three years? There's certainly a contrast.

Despite spending more than $32 million on their linemen in 2016, following an offseason push to acquire veterans for the group, the Vikings are fighting through a liability at the position thanks to a deleterious set of injuries and a smattering of subpar performances from veterans when they've been healthy. The Vikings are last in the league in rushing, with their 1.57 yards before contact the lowest average since ESPN Stats & Information began charting the statistic in 2009. They've been able to keep Sam Bradford upright, as he's tied for the second-quickest release in the league this season, but concerns about their pass protection have kept them from exploring more opportunities to throw downfield.

Since selecting Phil Loadholt in the second round in 2009, the Vikings have taken just one lineman before the fourth round, when they used the fourth overall pick on Matt Kalil in 2012. Their line Thursday night will include left tackle T.J. Clemmings (a fourth-round pick the Vikings initially replaced with Andre Smith after an uneven first season at right tackle), center Nick Easton (an undrafted free agent the Vikings acquired from the 49ers in a trade for Gerald Hodges) and right tackle Jeremiah Sirles (whom the Vikings got for a sixth-round pick in a September 2015 deal with the Chargers).

Alex Boone -- a $26.8 million free-agent addition this spring -- and Brandon Fusco, whom the Vikings gave a five-year contract in 2014 after selecting him in the sixth round of the 2011 draft, are the only two Week 1 starters currently healthy enough to play Thursday night. But with Kalil coming off hip surgery and Joe Berger turning 35 next spring, the Vikings are heading toward a period of reinvestment in their offensive line. They traded away their 2017 first-round pick to acquire Bradford in September, but they still have three picks in the second and third rounds in addition to two fourth-rounders -- enough ammo to move up, or acquire a handful of players.

Perhaps their next draft will begin the kind of investment that has proved so vital to the Cowboys' success.

"The guys that we drafted in the first round [came from] big programs that play with a physical style of offensive football," Garrett said. "We're certainly drawn to that. We feel like that's the nature of the game at this level. Even though offenses have become more and more spread in the NFL, there's still a real physical component we think is important. Each of those guys has that, and it's certainly helped our team since they've been here."