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 $35MM — with guarantees at $110MM (total) and $88.7MM (full) — Jefferson set a high bar this offseason, one that eclipsed Nick Bosa‘s $34MM-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 deal yesterday, the team also made a contract offer to Prescott’s agents “a few days ago,” per Calvin Watkins of the Dallas Morning News. With yesterday’s 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 wherein 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 $1BB 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. According to Matt Johnson of sportsnaut.com, the league’s estimated revenue for the 2023-24 season approached $20BB.
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.
Sam Robinson contributed to this post.
Jerry Jones stays trying to pay the most amount of money he possibly can for his team.
I’d say most teams would dream of having a top 3 WR, top 3 pass rusher, and top 10 QB. Why shouldn’t he want to pay?
He waits until the market booms and ends up paying more is the problem. He could have pressed to try and get Lamb done before JJ. I don’t see Lamb as better than JJ so if he gets more they messed up.
I guess its a good problem to have but paying three players record deals means you have to draft practically perfectly to replace others you can’t afford or these three have to do it all on their own and that’s just not possible
It’s not just that he has to pay 3 record deals it’s that he has procrastinated and delayed paying Lamb especially to where that record deal is going to cost 5-7 million dollars more then it would have if he had done it in March or April.
Before this offseason the highest paid WR was at 30 million a year. Jerry could have offered him a million more a year and probably gotten him to sign but instead he waited for both AJ brown, and Justin Jefferson to sign so now the high is 35 million. So now Ceedee wants to make more than Jetus does.
Because even still with two of those those three players on their rookie deals they haven’t been able to do anything in the playoffs, because of their lack of overall depth.
You could contribute that to injuries, but every team has injuries. The 49ers get hammered more than most teams, yet they still have been abke to make long playoff runs.
You could contribute that to poor drafting, you could contribute it to misplaying their hand and costing themselves valuable salary cap room by royally having to overpay for their QBs first big contract, you could contribute it to poor coaching, ownership meddling with the team and creating an environment that isn’t all about winning, etc.
You could contribute their inability to win big games on a ton of different things, but the facts are it is a combination of all pf those things that has led to the Cowboys prolonged lack of playoff success.
Overpaying a very good but not great QB, untimely injuries, poor roster management decisions, an overall fundamental lack of knowing how to win big games, coaching, worrying more about the brand than winning on the field by ownership, and lacking a true team identity and positive lockerroom culture are all issues at the forefront of the Cowboys lack of success in the playoffs.
It doesn’t look like it is going to get any better before it gets worse. Now, they’re going to go from having Lamb and Parsons on rookie deals to top non-QB deals, their depth is going to continue to suffer because they won’t be able to add any quality pieces in free agency, and they’re going to be forced to put an extreme importance on having to hit at least 1-2 quality starters and 1-2 solid draft picks that can provide depth and contribute to their team success each and every year.
Plus, it’s only going to get worse when Dak asks to be the highest paid player despite his lack of a track record be able to lead his team to Wins when it matters the most.
Dak has done so much good in his career, and he’s put up some excellent numbers. I mean some extremely good numbers over his career, but instead of all his accomplishment and accolades the mental image I get anytime anyone mentions his name is a bunch of Chunky Soup commercials and his inability to manage his time properly allowing the clock to expire losing to the r9ers in the playoffs…
Then again, I’m sure he sleeps just fine at night knowing he’s going to be the highest paid player in the league…
Dallas should call Jimmy Johnson. Jimmy had no problem trading away Herschel for a haul and built the dynasty. With the expiring contracts Dallas has, Jimmy would flip the for a ton of picks and players. But Jerry would never dare admit Jimmy built and won those rings decades ago.
Draft picks are valued much higher these days. I think Lamb has already turned in a season better than Walker’s best season, and he still couldn’t bring in as much draft capital as the Cowboys eventually received in that deal.
Agreed. My point was to flip the expiring contracts (Dak, Lamb, OG, Micha etc. lots of expiring high profile contracts on their roster in closing the HC), not just one, into new players and picks. Jimmy was masterful at that.
Jerry would never call Jimmy for advice. Sounds foolish, but that the way life works from time to time. Me, if I owned a team, I’d call Jimmy, Bill Parcels, & Ron Wolf. They all won an awful lot, pay for their advice.
So you’re saying a team that finished tied for the best record in their conference and made the playoffs, should trade their best 3 players instead of paying them market value, because a guy successfully did it 25 years ago?
The NFL changes. The optics, market economics and player/coach dynamics are all vastly different. As excellent as Parcells and Jimmy were for their era, they would be outmatched and exposed by the passing centric NFL of today. Parcells did not win a playoff game in his time in Dallas. Jimmy never won a division championship in Miami.
I’m saying Jerry isn’t happy with his team’s performance so why pay them?
I don’t think in good faith you could’ve watched Parsons or Lamb last year and decided they were the problem and shouldn’t be paid.
I didn’t say that. I said Dallas should hit the reset button using their high profile players for picks and players in trades. Jerry knows this team isn’t SB caliber hence the delay in the contracts. Start the auction and put someone in charge that knows how to develop & draft talent.
Truth be told, Jerry is well over .500 as a GM, but the Boys are always short for one reason or another. He needs someone else’s voice but would never admit to that; ego.
The problem is that all three have expiring contracts and will demand top dollar in their position, meaning most teams would not give a high pick for a short-term rental, resulting in a high cap hit. If he tried to trade them last year the offers would likely have been higher
You’re right. Most responsible teams won’t pay top 2 money at a position while trading away high picks. But there are plenty of irresponsible teams out there. Jags, Titans, Jets, Browns, DC, Bears, Raiders, Cards etc.
Everyone, including Jerry, knows this Dallas roster just isn’t built for a SB. That’s why he’s let all of the contracts get to the expiration point as well as his HC’s contract.
The Cowboys need to cut Dak loose! I would not sign him to a huge contract just because he has won during the regular season! Remember, Cooper Rush was 5-1 in the six games he filled in for Dak. Don’t get strapped with a big contract for a QB that has not won you a Super Bowl or NFC Championship!
They don’t have the QB behind him that is better or good enough. Rush is not going to win you the game, they have to play very safe and hope the defense wins it.
Lance didn’t look good with the 9ers, he needs to give them something to think about in pre season.
Honestly, so what? I don’t even care who they have at QB anymore as long as it isn’t Dak and especially on another long term deal for a ton of money.
He just isn’t good. Sure, he is okay when the game is out of hand but he can’t throw a deep ball, can’t run anymore, make boneheaded mental mistakes that a high schooler wouldn’t make.
His possible upside just isn’t worth it and its been proven over and over and over and over.
Suck it up for a year or two and draft, trade whatever a QB for the future. It isn’t Dak Prescott and never will be
For the record, I think that Lamb is by far the most expendable of this trio, for reasons that I’ve been very open about, but it has to be hard negotiating with a team both in private and in public. Teams who leak contract demands after the fact are questionable-sometimes things do get ridiculous demand wise, sometimes they’re just flaming an open fire-but leaking them AS they occur must make it harder to barter in good faith. Even if you felt that they had to be leaked, it’s not like this has been a LeVeon Bell-esque stand-off odyssey, here.
Lamb might be overplaying his hand in my opinion, and maybe even arguably demanding too much, but I don’t see how it wouldn’t be frustrating for his team to have negotiate in private and in public. I’m sure that Parsons’ and Prescott’s teams are watching this-and perhaps that’s what the parties involved right now want.
I think Jerry intentionally waits so he can pay his guys the most. He’s a billionaire with a massive ego. It probably means something to him knowing that he gets to claim that he has the highest paid QB, WR and Edge. He wants players to know that if you play for DAL you are going to get top dollar.
Just my opinion.
If so, Dallas fans are in for a tough go the next few years
If there wasn’t a cap then that could be all fine and good.
With a cap, it’s stupid
Jerry Jones is certainly well positioned to convince these players to accept a team friendly deal in exchange for a 1% ownership share. Of course setting a precedent such as that would probably make him more despised among the other owners than Daniel Snyder was.