Dez Bryant

Extra Points: Houston, Tucker, Dez, Los Angeles

It took a while for the Chiefs and linebacker Justin Houston to agree to a lucrative extension, but the three-time Pro Bowler was always confident a deal would get done.

“When the season ended, coach Reid pulled me into the office saying, ‘It’s going to get done, just be patient,’” Houston told BJ Kissel of KCChiefs.com. “So that’s what I did.”

Houston was clearly thrilled that the team inked him to the richest deal in franchise history.

“It just made me feel like they really believed in me,” Houston said. “For them to do this, just like your family back home, your mom, your parents, they believe in you. It gives you an extra edge on the field when you know you’ve got people really believing in you and what you can do.”

Let’s check out some more notes from around the league…

  • Following Stephen Gostkowski‘s extension with the Patriots, Aaron Wilson of the Baltimore Sun believes the Ravens and kicker Justin Tucker now have a framework that they can work with. Tucker will be a free agent following the season, and Wilson says it will “cost a lot of money” to retain the accurate kicker.
  • The Cowboys didn’t add any “special protections” to Dez Bryant‘s contract, reports Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com. Instead of loading up the contract with opportunities to void guaranteed money (like Dallas did with Byron Jones), Bryant’s contract instead includes the “standard language for voiding guaranteed payments.”
  • Angels Stadium in Anaheim likely won’t be submitted as an option to become a temporary home for a relocating NFL team, reports Scott M. Reid of The Orange County Register. The stadium was previously the home of the Rams.

NFC Mailbags: Giants, Panthers, Cowboys

We took a look at ESPN.com’s AFC mailbags earlier this morning. Let’s now shift our focus to the NFC…

  • General manager Jerry Reese deserves more criticism for the current state of the Giants roster than head coach Tom Coughlin, says Dan Graziano. Regardless, the writer points to the organizations lack of turnover at the position (three different GMs in 37 years), which leads him to believe that Reese will be sticking around.
  • The Panthers have some room to work with under the cap, but David Newton writes that there’s no need to rush negotiations with their extension candidates. The team has Luke Kuechly wrapped up through the 2016 season, and the same goes for Star Lotulelei and Kawann Short. Cornerback Josh Norman is set to become a free agent following the season, but Newton isn’t convinced that the team will pay him what he may be seeking.
  • Todd Archer believes fans shouldn’t be counting on the Cowboys to sign another running back. As the writer describes, the coaching staff seems set on their current grouping of Joseph RandleDarren McFadden and Lance Dunbar.
  • Archer is also a fan of the Dez Bryant contract, and he believes the wideout received a fair amount of money. Meanwhile, Archer disagrees with the theory that the Cowboys haven’t invested in their defense. He points to the contracts handed out to Brandon Carr, Sean Lee and Orlando Scandrick, as well as the drafting of Morris Claiborne, Byron Jones and Randy Gregory.

Cowboys Notes: Valuation, Dez, Offseason

Earlier this week, Forbes released its breakdown of the top 50 most valuable franchises in sports, and 20 NFL teams earned a mention, making it the best-represented league on the list by a comfortable margin. First among those 20 NFL franchises was the Cowboys, valuated at $3.2 billion by Forbes. Dallas didn’t quite earn the top overall spot on the list, but the team was a close second to soccer’s Real Madrid.

Of course, as Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk notes, NFL franchises are worth whatever someone is willing to pay for them, and the fact that Forbes’ figure for the Bills falls well short of the $1.4 billion paid by Terry and Kim Pegula last year suggests that it’s not an exact science.

Here’s more on the NFL’s most valuable franchise:

  • In providing the specific details on Dez Bryant‘s new contract, Aaron Wilson of the Baltimore Sun notes (via Twitter) that the deal includes $500K de-escalators in the event that the wideout misses workouts.
  • Referring to reports about a supposedly damning videotape as a “smear campaign,” Jarrett Bell of USA Today suggests that Bryant is owed an apology by those who “sloppily reported” the existence of such a video earlier this offseason. For his part, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told USA Today that he’s skeptical of the existence of such a tape.
  • Using his “expected contract value” metric, Bryce Johnston of Over the Cap explains why Bryant’s new extension is more player-friendly than Demaryius Thomas‘ deal, despite the fact that the two contracts looked similar on the surface.
  • Babe Laufenberg of The Dallas Morning News rates the Cowboys‘ offseason as excellent, citing the addition of La’el Collins as the move that put it over the top. Still, the team lost the NFL’s leading rusher, has signed two pass rushers with checkered histories, and has only one top-flight corner, so there are some causes for concern in Dallas.

Zach Links contributed to this post.

Cowboys’ Stephen Jones On Bryant Talks

Earlier today, Cowboys executive vice president and COO Stephen Jones joined Ben and Skin on KRLD-FM to discuss the inner workings of the deadline deal with star Dez Bryant. While there appeared to be serious discord between Bryant and Dallas, Jones says that a sense of urgency pushed the two sides closer together, leading to a deal.

I’d say at the end of the day it’s all about a timeline. That’s what pushes everybody to a place probably they’re uncomfortable to go to, and I’d say that in all due respect to both sides, but I think obviously deadlines cause things to happen, and I think in this case, that’s exactly what happened,” Jones said, according to a transcript from The Dallas Morning News. “We had a number that we had strategized over for probably weeks, and really getting our hands around how the number would affect us, not only this year but over the next five years.”

Here’s a look at some of the highlights from Jones’ chat..

On if there was any way in the world the Cowboys would have let Bryant go at some point.

We were never going to let Dez go. We had actually three years of franchise tags. Losing Dez never crossed our mind. It was just a matter, was it going to be a comfortable one or a little bit of an uneasy one because he was being tagged each year? There was never a thought that Dez wasn’t going to be a Dallas Cowboy.

On what the Cowboys had to get from Bryant’s side to get the deal to happen.

It all starts with what we were going to be paying Dez under a franchise tag. I think everybody made public we were going to pay him right at [$13MM] this year, we were going to pay him a little over [$15MM] next year, so you’re going to be paying him $14MM anyway over two years. Usually in this business, the cap keeps going up and players’ salaries keep going up. It made for a nice deal .We made some concessions in terms of moving some numbers his way. I think things went good.

On if there was anything Cowboys needed to hear from Roc Nation to make them comfortable.

I think the biggest thing, Roc Nation, Tom [Condon]’s really the negotiator in this deal, but the bigger thing for Roc Nation is we really got comfortable that they were going to be good people and good mentors and good managers for Dez in terms of what he does with this money and really think that he’s going to be going in a good direction with this group. I think it’s going to be a positive for him. It was good to hear what his strategies are for Dez and what they intend to do in terms of hoping that he’ll be a prudent guy with his money and he’ll be efficient with his money and won’t wake up and not have any. 

On Stephen and Jerry Jones going up to New York to get the deal done.

We talked about three weeks ago that we were going to go to New York and visit with them. It was a good place for us to meet. Jerry had business up there. It’s easy for me to get up there, but Jerry was coming back from overseas and made for a nice meeting place. We could do multiple things up there, and Jerry had other meetings as well. 

Details, Reactions On Bryant/Thomas Deals

Reports earlier this week suggested neither Dez Bryant nor Demaryius Thomas had better than a 50/50 chance of signing an extension this week, so it came as a bit of a surprise yesterday when both players got deals done with their respective teams. We examined a few specific details of those contracts earlier today, and now we’ll round up a few more notes and reactions related to the pair of extensions. Let’s dive in….

Bryant negotiations:

  • Although Bryant admitted that going through his contract situation this summer was “extremely hard,” he reiterated on Wednesday that he was willing to sit out regular season games if he didn’t get a new deal (link via Dallas Morning News). “I am that guy that, I have to stand by my word, because that’s how I want to raise my babies,” Bryant said. “It was all me. It was honest.”
  • Appearing on 105.3 FM in Dallas, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones answered a few specific questions about the negotiations with Bryant, noting that the “false financial perspective” set by Calvin Johnson‘s and Larry Fitzgerald‘s contracts was problematic during contract discussions. The Dallas Morning News has that quote and several more from Jones.
  • During his own radio appearance in Dallas, executive VP Stephen Jones also discussed the deal in some depth, admitting the Bryant negotiations were among the most difficult the Cowboys have ever had. Once again, the Dallas Morning News has the details.

Thomas negotiations:

  • Broncos general manager John Elway told reporters, including Troy Renck of The Denver Post (Twitter link), that there wasn’t any movement from June 1st until Wednesday morning on Thomas’ deal. At that point, talks between the two sides reignited and led to a five-year, $70MM deal being reached.
  • Elway also explained that keeping Thomas and locking him up long term was the first step in keeping this Broncos team together, tweets James Palmer of NFL Network.
  • According to Mike Klis of 9News, the Broncos had a seven-year, $100MM offer on the table for Thomas, but the Pro Bowl wideout opted for the five-year, $70MM pact instead. While the seven-year deal looks more impressive on paper, and would’ve increased the average annual value of the extension, those final two years essentially would’ve been risk-free options for Denver, so it’s not a surprise that Thomas chose the shorter deal.

Potential impact of Thomas/Bryant deals on other players:

  • Now that Thomas and Bryant have gotten something done, there’s a “general sense” around the Falcons that Atlanta could lock up Julio Jones by the start of training camp, despite a lack of progress so far, according to Vaughn McClure of ESPN.com. The Falcons’ camp is scheduled to get underway two weeks from Friday.
  • After seeing the deals signed by Bryant and Thomas, Colts wide receiver T.Y. Hilton might be hearing cash registers in his head. The 25-year-old Hilton, who has back-to-back seasons of 80-plus catches and 1,000-plus yards, is entering the final year of his deal, and issued the following tweet on Wednesday: “All this BREAKING NEWS. Does this mean the bar is set?? #THEGHOST”
  • Hilton will have a hard time demanding a contract in the same range as the five-year, $70MM extensions signed by Bryant and Thomas, but those deals help to reset the market for receivers, and should benefit the Colts wideout in other ways, writes Stephen Holder of the Indianapolis Star.

Other Thomas/Bryant leftovers:

  • While collusion between teams during contract negotiations isn’t permitted, players and agents are allowed to talk, and it was legal collusion between agents Tom Condon and Todd France that helped both Bryant’s and Thomas’ extensions get done, says Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. Condon’s agency, CAA, is on the verge of buying France’s agency, Five Star Athlete Management, and the two agents took advantage of their new relationship.
  • Jason Fitzgerald of Over the Cap examines how the Bryant and Thomas contracts compare to one another, as well as how the deals match up to those signed by a few top players at other positions.

Zach Links contributed to this post.

Contract Details: Bryant, Thomas, Houston

In the wake of the four contract extensions signed yesterday by players who received the franchise tag, year-to-year details on structure, salary, and bonuses has begun to surface on three of those deals. While we still don’t have a lot of specific info on Stephen Gostkowski‘s new four-year contract with the Patriots, there are plenty of updates out there on the three big agreements of the day. Let’s round up the latest:

Dez Bryant (WR), Cowboys:

  • Todd Archer of ESPNDallas.com and Gil Brandt of NFL.com (Twitter links) provide the yearly breakdown of Bryant’s base salaries and cap hits. Bryant’s modest $3MM base salary in 2015 will result in just a $7MM cap number. His cap charges increase to $13MM, $17MM, $16.5MM, and $16.5MM in the final four years of the pact.
  • Bryant gets $32MM fully guaranteed at the time of his signing, and his contract doesn’t feature offsets, according to Joel Corry of CBSSports.com (Twitter links).
  • Jason Fitzgerald of Over the Cap lays out what Bryant’s full extension looks like in chart form.

Demaryius Thomas (WR), Broncos:

  • Thomas’ contract includes an $11MM signing bonus, a $6.5MM roster bonus, and a fully guaranteed $4.5MM base salary for 2015, per Mike Klis of 9News. Thomas’ 2016 salary of $13MM is also fully guaranteed, while his 2017 salary ($8.5MM) is guaranteed for injury only at the moment — it becomes fully guaranteed early in the 2017 league year. The 27-year-old has a $4MM option bonus in 2018.
  • Thomas’ extension doesn’t feature offsets, tweets Corry.
  • Here’s what Thomas’ deal looks like in chart form, via Over the Cap.

Justin Houston (OLB), Chiefs:

  • Houston’s new contract counts for just $5.1MM against the Chiefs’ cap in 2015 before jumping to $19.1MM in 2016. In a tweet, Corry breaks down the cap charges for all six years.
  • According to Corry (via Twitter), Houston gets $12MM of his $20.5MM signing bonus within 20 days of signing the contract. The remaining $8.5MM is deferred until April 1, 2016.

Reactions To Dez Bryant’s New Deal

Jerry Jones and Stephen Jones flew to New York to spend five hours on Tuesday night meeting with Roc Nation officials to hammer out Dez Bryant‘s deal, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets. Now, the Cowboys have their star wide receiver locked up for the next five years and they won’t have to worry about him potentially skipping games. Here’s some of the latest fallout on Dez’s new deal..

  • Jerry Jones said he was optimistic at 3am that a deal would get done, Charean Williams of the Star-Telegram tweets.
  • Jones said he took Bryant’s threats of missing camp and regular season games seriously, Todd Archer of ESPN.com tweets. The Cowboys owner added that he knew the wide receiver wasn’t playing around since neither one of them are careless with their words.
  • There are no special stipulations in Dez’s contract to protect the team from off-the-field indiscretions, Jones told reporters, including Clarence Hill of the Star-Telegram (on Twitter).
  • Now that the Cowboys and Bryant have reached a five-year deal worth $70MM with $45MM guaranteed, Vaughn McClure of ESPN.com wonders if the Falcons have a better sense of Julio Jones‘ price tag in a long-term extension. Of course, there are many differences between their situations, including timing. Today was the Cowboys’ deadline to get a deal done with Bryant. Meanwhile, the Falcons have roughly a year to go on the shot clock.
  • Bryant is finally being paid what he deserves, Alex Marvez of FOX Sports writes. A strong argument can be made that Bryant enters this season as the NFL’s best wideout, but a holdout of any sort would have thrown a wrench into things.

NFLPA Likely To Drop Collusion Claims Against Cowboys, Broncos

The NFLPA is not expected to pursue collusion claims now that Dez Bryant and Demaryius Thomas got their deals done, a union source told Liz Mullen of SportsBusiness Journal (on Twitter). Both players agreed to lucrative deals earlier today that, interestingly, were roughly equal.

Evidence of possible collusion between the Cowboys and Broncos reportedly stemmed from a conversation that took place between Bryant and Cowboys COO Stephen Jones. Jones explained to Bryant that the Calvin Johnson contract, which is the most lucrative deal for a wide receiver in the NFL, had no relevance to other receivers because of the unique circumstances surrounding those negotiations. Then, according to Bryant’s account (per the source), Jones told the receiver that he talked to Broncos GM John Elway about the situation. Because the Broncos also had franchise-tagged receiver in Thomas, the admission that Jones and Elway communicated about the situation constitutes evidence of collusion.

The NFLPA letter containing the collusion claims against the Broncos and Cowboys went out to clubs on Tuesday, but it sounds like all is forgiven now that the two star receivers have gotten hefty paydays.

Cowboys Sign Dez Bryant To Extension

2:31pm: Nick Eatman of DallasCowboys.com has tweeted out a photo of Bryant signing the contract, making it official.

2:16pm: Bryant will get $23MM in total money – including a $20MM signing bonus – for 2015, according to Pro Football Talk (Twitter links). The other $22MM will become fully guaranteed by March of 2016.

2:10pm: The Cowboys and Dez Bryant have an agreement in principle on a five-year extension worth $70MM, which will be finalized prior to this afternoon’s deadline for franchised players to sign multiyear contracts, reports Ian Rapoport of NFL.com (via Twitter). According to Chris Mortensen of ESPN.com (via Twitter), the agreement features $45MM in guaranteed money, though it’s not clear yet how much of that amount is fully guaranteed.Dez Bryant

Earlier reports had indicated that the two sides were closing in on an agreement and that Bryant was on his way to the team’s facility to hammer out the final details. Based on Rapoport’s report, it sounds like the star wideout will be putting pen to paper shortly.

The agreement between Bryant and the Cowboys brings to an end a saga that has played out over the last several months, ever since the team assigned its franchise tag to the All-Pro receiver back in March. While both sides indicated all along that they wanted to get a long-term deal done, there were plenty of potential roadblocks along the way, with Bryant threatening to hold out into the regular season if he didn’t get an extension, and the NFLPA looking into possible collusion between the Cowboys and Broncos over Bryant’s and Demaryius Thomas‘ contracts.

Although Bryant’s franchise tag was worth $12.823MM, he had been seeking a larger annual salary on a multiyear contract. Reports earlier today suggested that Dallas had increased its offer to north of $13MM annually, and while it was said that the wideout’s camp still wasn’t satisfied with that proposal, Bryant seemed eager to get something done and get his contract situation put to bed. It appears his new deal will average $14MM per year.

Bryant, 26, has established himself as an elite, durable wideout during the first five seasons of his career. The former first-round pick has racked up 381 catches and 56 touchdowns while appearing in 75 of a possible 80 regular-season games since Dallas selected him 24th overall out of Oklahoma State in 2010. Bryant hasn’t missed a game since 2011 and is coming off his third straight season with at least 88 catches and 12 TDs.

The 6-foot-2, 220-pounder set a new career high for touchdowns in 2014 by reaching the end zone 16 times, and he also tied his previous best yards-per-catch mark (15.0). As a result, Bryant earned First-Team All-Pro honors and his second consecutive Pro Bowl invitation.

Among the NFL’s elite receivers who are extension-eligible this season, Bryant is the first to land an extension, and the deal could result in other star wideouts around the league making progress on their own contracts. Thomas, Bryant’s fellow franchise-tag recipient, will have to get something done with the Broncos by the top of the hour if he hopes to sign a long-term deal before 2016, but Julio Jones and A.J. Green could negotiate extensions with their respective teams at any time throughout the year.

One reason that it took some time for one of these top receivers to sign an extension was the uncertainty about how they fit into a market that featured a significant gap between the top two contracts. The gap between Calvin Johnson‘s $16.21MM average salary and the $12MM annual figure for Mike Wallace was significant, with players and agents angling for something closer to Johnson’s number, while teams argued that was an outlier. Unsurprisingly, Bryant’s per-year salary falls nearly right in the middle of the two figures.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Cowboys, Dez Bryant Closing In On Deal

1:45pm: Assuming Bryant and the Cowboys finalize a contract, it’ll be for five years, tweets Todd Archer of ESPN.com.

1:37pm: Bryant is headed to the Cowboys’ facility now, in hopes of putting the finishing touches on an extension, per Adam Schefter of ESPN.com (Twitter links). There are still some minor points to work out, but there’s a sense it’ll get done, according to Schefter and Rapoport, who tweets that the two sides are finalizing a deal.

1:11pm: The Cowboys are moving closer to getting a long-term extension done with Dez Bryant, a source tells David Moore of the Dallas Morning News. Nothing has been agreed upon yet, and the two sides have less than two hours to finalize a deal, but everyone appears optimistic that it’ll get done, tweets Ian Rapoport of NFL.com.

Earlier today, we heard that the Cowboys had increased their offer to Bryant, going north of $13MM per year. However, that proposal was viewed by Bryant’s camp as “still not great,” according to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.

Based on recent reports from Jason Cole of Bleacher Report and others, it sounds as if Bryant may be anxious to get a multiyear pact done today, rather than waiting until after the season to resume negotiations. If that’s the case, then the star wideout may ultimately elect to accept the best offer on the table, even if his representatives would prefer that he hold out for more.

If the two sides don’t strike a deal by 3:00pm central time, Bryant would have to play on a one-year contract in 2015, if he plays at all. He has threatened to miss training camp, the preseason, and even regular season games if he doesn’t get a long-term extension today.