Stephen Jones thinks we are all wrong for saying the Cowboys wait too long to do deals.
The Dallas Cowboys are fine being patient. Consider that over the course of the last 14 or so months that the team has had negotiations with their franchise quarterback, top wide receiver and elite pass rusher at the top (seemingly) of their to-do list (obviously there were other things on the list).
Before last season ever began, CeeDee Lamb had come close to becoming the highest-paid non-quarterback in the NFL. Right about when the ink was drying on his deal Dak Prescott did become the highest-paid player period in the NFL. Micah Parsons had yet to be paid, but it stands to reason that he will wind up becoming the highest-paid non-quarterback when it is all said and done.
That last paragraph was full of words and verbiage as opposed to numbers. What Lamb and Prescott got in terms of their deals was obviously very large, but the “highest-paid” element is something that we have seen change from player to player across the league as a whole. There has yet to be another quarterback to get a deal since Dak did, but when one does they will in all likelihood have that label applied to their contract. Just look at how that phenomenon happened to/around Dak after the deal he signed in 2021.
Living in a world of this logic, NFL teams have to accept that they will make players who play the positions in question top dollar whenever the time comes (assuming the players have proven to be worth market rate). There are exceptions to every rule, but the laws of supply and demand have existed for as long as time now. It is fair to say that when it comes to players who you really believe in (like Lamb or Prescott or Parsons) that getting the deal in question done as soon as possible sees you pay the lowest amount possible, even if it is the “highest” at the time you strike it.
This appears to be a philosophy that Stephen Jones disagrees with. Speaking at the league’s owner meetings he touched on the idea that the Cowboys are working with Micah Parsons towards an extension, but he added that they do not feel that they have a habit of waiting too long. Regarding the latter point, he outright said that they disagree with people who say that they do.
“I don’t want to get into any details,” Stephen Jones said from The Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday before the annual league meeting starts Monday. “It’s not fair for anybody, other than we’ve got a great working relationship with Micah and think the world of him. Like I’ve said, we’ve had good visits with him and feel good about where we’re headed.”
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Jones did try to squash talk that the Cowboys wait too long to get deals done with their star players, which ends up costing them more money in the long run.
“We’ve done the early before, and we’ve waited until the end to do them,” Jones said. “A lot of it is just the negotiation itself. Some of them take longer than others. And we put about zero credibility or credence into people saying you wait too long.”
Odds are you are not operating an NFL front office (if you are, thanks for checking out BTB) and I can tell you that I am not, but despite that being the case you and I both know that the Cowboys do wait too long.
Consider that the team could have negotiated extensions with Lamb and/or Prescott in the 2023 offseason, before the quarterback market specifically reached an entirely different level thanks to Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow just to name a few. While Dallas could have gotten a Lamb deal done then as well they did not and instead waited so long that Justin Jefferson set the market at an incredibly high place. Lamb did not totally outdo Jefferson in every respect, but the point is that if the team had been proactive about those things then they would have literally paid less than they ultimately did.
Regarding Parsons, he was first eligible for an extension last offseason. If the Cowboys had taken care of him at that point then they would not have the newly-negotiated deals that Myles Garrett and Maxx Crosby got for Parsons’ representation to try and supersede. Again, it is simply citing supply and demand to say that the Cowboys could have paid less for several deals if they had gotten them done earlier.
At this point there are no big-time pass rushers left on the market outside of Trey Hendrickson. It makes sense that he wants to get paid after leading the league in sacks and it also makes sense that if he got a new deal somewhere that it would serve as another bar for Parsons and his representation to try and clear.
The Jones family can disagree with that all they want, but allow us to reference the words of someone who Stephen may trust a lot.
Consider that Stephen Jones said back in 2021 that the team waited too long to take care of Dak Prescott’s extension (the first major one).
Jones was asked by Pat Doney of KXAS-TV NBC 5 to name the Cowboys’ ”biggest swing and miss” during Jones’ tenure in the front office, and Jones said it was having Prescott play out his full four-year rookie contract, and then play one year on the franchise tag, before finally signing him to a long-term deal.
“Probably would’ve signed Dak the first time around,” Jones said. “It would’ve been better for everybody.”
That’s pretty funny, isn’t it?
