Still dealing with a rare contract situation in which three players are in the mix for market-setting extensions, the Cowboys have Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb positioned ahead of Micah Parsons in their queue. Differing reports have come out regarding whether Dallas’ quarterback or top wide receiver is the first priority, but the most recent update would point to the latter being in that slot.
COO Stephen Jones
told NFL.com’s Jane Slater on Saturday the team has submitted another proposal to Lamb. Jones views the conversations with Lamb’s camp as positive, as the team attempts to hammer out an agreement that will likely be similar to the Vikings’ megadeal for Justin Jefferson.
After indicating both Lamb and Parsons wanted to become the NFL’s highest-paid non-QB, Jones backtracked by saying the fifth-year wide receiver is not demanding that. At $35M — with guarantees at $110M (total) and $88.7M (full) — Jefferson set a high bar this offseason, one that eclipsed Nick Bosa‘s $34M-AAV deal as the league’s top non-QB contract.
A report earlier this week, coming out just before Lamb made his long-rumored holdout official, indicated the Cowboys had not yet entered substantial talks with the 2020 first-rounder. It appears that has changed, with this offer — which emerged Friday — not being the first during this negotiation. The Cowboys had Lamb on their extension radar last year but did not appear to enter serious talks. That has driven up the price now that Jefferson, Amon-Ra St. Brown and A.J. Brown have upped the market this offseason.
On the quarterback front, Jones told the reporters that, apart from Lamb’s offer, the team also made a contract offer to Prescott’s agents “a few days ago,” per Calvin Watkins of the Dallas Morning News. With the extensions of Tua Tagovailoa and Jordan Love, it’s likely that the offer will get tossed aside in order to process the newest information. With Tagovailoa’s deal falling just short in annual average value of the league leaders and Love’s extension tying him with Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence as the highest annual earners of all time, it’s easy to envision a situation in the near future where Prescott becomes the NFL’s highest-paid player of all time.
A reason that the Cowboys seem to be a step behind the rest of the league on getting these new deals done could be Jones’ father, Jerry Jones. The elder Jones acts as the team’s owner, president and general manager. This is of note due to what seems to be Dallas’ view on the salary cap affecting negotiations.
Watkins reports that Jones fears that the league’s monopoly case with DirecTV could affect the NFL’s revenue in the future, ultimately pushing for a reduction, or at least a slower inflation, in the salary cap. Subjectively, this feels like a bit of an empty threat.
Aside from the COVID-19-affected 2020 season, NFL revenue has increased at the rate of $1B per year each year since 2017. Regardless of the result of the DirecTV lawsuit, the NFL has secured broadcasting deals with CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN/ABC, YouTube TV, Amazon and most recently, Netflix.
Jones claims to know where the NFL salary cap is headed better than anyone else, according to The Athletic’s Jon Machota. Perhaps he does have information other general managers aren’t privy to, but for now, it projects as a bit of grandstanding in order to excuse a slow resolution to multiple big contract negotiations. With recent offers out to Lamb and Prescott, it seems progress is being made, but there is a lot more work to be done in Dallas.
Ely Allen contributed to this post.
