Lack of Lamb: Cowboys WR fines at $1.5M and counting if he doesn't show for Rams game
The fines for training camp holdout CeeDee Lamb continue to stack up for now. The Dallas Cowboys’ top receiver has not reported to any of the club’s offseason activities, putting him in a much different category than the other star players in Dallas angling for new deals. Both Lamb, recently placed on the Reserved/Did Not Report list, and quarterback Dak Prescott are in the final year of their deals. Meanwhile edge rusher Micah Parsons is in his first year of eligibility to sign a second contract after having three All-Pro seasons, two of them First-Team.
Prescott’s attended the entire offseason, and after missing voluntary workouts Parsons began attending the mandatory work in the spring and has been around all of training camp. Lamb has been a no-show and therefore has been accruing fine amounts since June.
That fine total will soon reach just under $1.6 million if he fails to report in time for Sunday’s exhibition opener against the Los Angeles Rams. Here’s how.
Lamb, and every NFL player, is subject to escalating fines per day of mandatory minicamp, and those totaled just over $101,000. Once training camp began, he is being fined $40,000 for each mandatory activity, which to this point is 10 practices, with Thursday’s scrimmage and Friday’s practice making it 12.
There’s some misreports that fifth-year option players, of which Lamb is one, are subject to the second-contract amounts of $50,000 per day, but that is not correct. There’s simply a section in the CBA dedicated to fifth-year players for all contract circumstances, and the fine amounts are outlined there, but are the same as all other players under the provisions of their rookie contracts.
This is detailed in 2020 CBA, Article 7, Section 7(h), which reads (important parts in bold):
(h) Breach.
(i) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in Article 42 or Article 4, after the Club has exercised its Fifth-Year Option for any player selected in the first 45 round of the 2016 or any subsequent Draft, any unexcused late reporting to or absence from preseason training camp by a player in the fifth League Year of his contract (the option year) shall subject the player to a fine of $40,000 per day for the 2020-2025 League Years and $45,000 per day for the 2026-2030 League Years, plus one week’s regular season salary for each preseason game missed. For purposes of this Subsection, Preseason Training Camp shall be defined as the period beginning with the mandatory reporting date for that player through the Sunday immediately preceding the first game of the NFL regular season. For the sake of clarity and the avoidance of doubt, the Progressive Discipline requirement set forth in Article 42, Section 1(a) shall not apply to any fine under this Subsection.
The last highlight, “plus one week’s regular season salary for each preseason game missed” is what takes effect starting Sunday.
Under Lamb’s fifth-year option, which is right-sized as a one-time original Pro Bowl roster member (replacement nominations don’t count), his 2024 is $17,991,000.
That is scheduled as 18 equal payments (17 games plus the by week) of $999,500.
Game fine: $999,500
12 missed practices: $480,000
Minicamp fines: $101,716
Making his total fines as of Sunday’s game, $1,581,216.
The Cowboys will have five more training camp practices and two more exhibition games remaining after Sunday, which means there are still another $2.2 million in fines possible if the holdout continues up to the regular season, where a whole different penalty schedule commences.
There is a bright side, however. As Joel Corry of CBS Sports points out, rookies who hold out are the exception to the rule. The NFL now forbids teas from forgiving fines for the players; in fact fines are executed by the league now to remove this from team hands. But rookies can negotiate lowering or dismissal of some of their fines when a new contract is negotiated.
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