Cowboys continue to draw national skepticism for not extending any top priority player
The most agreed-upon thing about the Cowboys these days is that it is strange how they have not extended a top priority player.
Nobody understands what is taking so long. Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons are all hanging in the balance for the Dallas Cowboys to varying degrees as far as their contracts with the team are concerned. You may feel that the team should be focused on bringing back one, two or all three of these players. However you feel it is rather unlikely that you want to see them all sign their seemingly-inevitable extensions with different teams.
This is why the lack of pens swooshing across papers feels so strange. You can make arguments against extending Dak Prescott if you really want to, but it is rather difficult to do so with CeeDee Lamb or Micah Parsons. Again, it is pretty impossible to do it for both.
As the summer season is now here and the offseason rolls along, the national media - like all of us - remains flummoxed by the way that the Cowboys brain trust is approaching this whole thing.
Last week ESPN’s Bill Barnwell handed out offseason superlatives to every team and when it came to the Cowboys he leaned into the infamous “all-in” comments and how nothing that Dallas has done has lived up to that claim.
The superlative: Team most likely to utterly and completely ignore whatever its owner is saying
Owner Jerry Jones’ repeated proclamations that the Cowboys are ”all-in” this offseason seem utterly and completely at odds with how his team has conducted the offseason. When you think of a team that is all-in, you probably envision one using every spare inch of its salary cap space, trading up in the draft and making the sorts of moves that make headlines and sell jerseys.
That isn’t exactly happening in Dallas. The Cowboys have lost seven players who lined up for at least 400 snaps last season, including longtime left tackle Tyron Smith and running back Tony Pollard. They’ve brought in exactly two veterans throughout free agency: linebacker Eric Kendricks and former lead back Ezekiel Elliott. They traded down with the Lions in Round 1 of the draft, gaining an extra third-round pick, but while allowing two offensive linemen to come off the board before they eventually drafted tackle Tyler Guyton. This does not look or feel like an all-in football team.
The Cowboys can’t be all-in in terms of adding talent this offseason because of the raises due to the players already on their roster. Wideout CeeDee Lamb has seen a bump from his $4.5 million salary in 2023 to $18 million as part of his fifth-year option, and he should top an annual average salary of $30 million per season on a contract extension. Edge rusher Micah Parsons, who is ticketed to make $5.3 million in the fourth year of his rookie deal, is eligible for a new contract that should get him north of $35 million per year.
And then there’s Dak Prescott, who holds all the leverage in negotiations in advance of the final year of his deal. Jones & Co. holding a hard bargaining line during Prescott’s prior contract talks accomplished little; the quarterback ended up getting franchise-tagged and then landed a market value deal with no-trade and no-franchise-tag clauses, meaning he’s now a year away from unrestricted free agency. The starting number in terms of average salary on his deal starts with a six. In all, that’s three players who were making about $50 million combined in 2023 who should be up around $125 million as early as this season.
It is hard to argue with any of what Barnwell is laying out here. He even went back to Dak Prescott’s previous contractual back and forth with the club, negotiations that the quarterback came out on top of, which should serve as a gentle reminder in this overall arena that Market Rate is undefeated when it comes to NFL superstars. This also holds true for Lamb and Parsons independent of Prescott. You would think/assume that the lesson the team learned (maybe not?) in that whole process would be instructive here.
But it clearly has not been which is a point of frustration for many. It would have been nice to see Dallas get deals done with Prescott (presuming you want the team to keep him long-term) and/or Lamb a year ago which were both possible things. Doing so would have required impressing each player with an offer, but that is the name of the game. It was always predictable that this offseason would be extraordinarily expensive if they didn’t do that and here we are.
What’s more is Dallas is risking doing this with Parsons next. Let’s be hypothetical and say that they do get deals done with Prescott and Lamb at some point. Their contracts are, after all, hourglasses with fewer grains of sand left in them than Parsons.
Imagine then that Parsons goes on a tear and finally breaks through and wins Defensive Player of the Year. His price, predictably, would be even larger than it is currently. If the players have great seasons (which is what the team obviously wants) then they risk it all blowing up in their face. Look at Lamb who is coming off of literally the most impressive statistical season that any wide receiver has ever had in franchise history. Parsons could do something similar.
Last week, NFL.com penned a list of priorities for every team and to no surprise their blurb about the Cowboys focused on extending someone, literally anyone.
Top priority: Extend someone!
The Cowboys have three obvious extension candidates: Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons. Each has earned a new contract. When will they get it? With each contract signed elsewhere, the price only increases. By all accounts, Dak and Dallas are ready to play out the final year of his deal and see where they’re at next offseason. That’s a risky proposition for the Cowboys, who could see their starting QB plucked away for a boatload of cash. Then Jerry Jones’ club is left with ... Trey Lance? The longer the Cowboys wait to pay Lamb, the more expensive it likely becomes, especially if Justin Jefferson or Ja’Marr Chase ink new deals first. The number is already north of $30 million per year. It’s only getting higher. Dallas has more runway with Parsons, but again, waiting hasn’t worked for the Cowboys with other contracts. Shouldn’t a change of gear be in order for one of the few true game-wrecking talents in the NFL?
The clock is ticking. Everybody is screaming at the Cowboys to realize it. Whether or not they decide to ultimately remains up to them.
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