RT La’el Collins, Extension
5-yr, $50 million | $20M fully guaranteed | $35M total guaranteed
Escape Year: 2023
Collins got $9 million in signing bonus with a $3.5 million 2020 option bonus. He has since restructured his 2020 base salary which was already guaranteed to help reduce the current year cap hit.
Easily the best of the deals and for several reasons. One, the stability of offensive line play is much higher than the other admittedly volatile positions. Two, Collins gave Dallas the homiest of hometown discounts imaginable when he had a huge payday waiting for him a year later. After the season he just had as a Top-3 right tackle, there’s no question Collins could have commanded at least a $14 million salary this offseason.
Collins is a possible successor to Tyron Smith on the left side towards the tail-end of his deal, as there’s no dead money on Smith’s contract following the 2021 season. He’d likely redo his deal again at that time, as he’s already on his third contract just five years into his career.
As has been covered in these pages and others where I’ve plied my trade over the last decade, there’s no such thing as salary cap hell. Since the last CBA was penned, teams have been able to manipulate the accounting mechanisms of when monies paid to players actually affect the annual salary cap. Since the last TV deal was inked, the cap has been growing by such large amounts teams are desperately working to find ways to spend their money.
The salary cap, assuming the league can return to some level of normal operation by Fall 2021, will explode. This was covered earlier in the offseason. The next TV deal, in an era where the only thing that still generates high, commercial-addled viewing is live sports, will dump bulldozers of cash into the league’s owners laps. Combined with legalization of sports betting, including in-stadium (again, provided the country opens back up), the salaries of today are going to be rendered minuscule by 2024, 2025 at the latest. Even with all of this readily apparent, if the Cowboys end up regretting any of the deals they’ve made, they have ways out.
In the long run, this means concerns over how they can afford to bring in more high-end talent, like a trade for the Jets’ Jamal Adams, and pay them, looks to be unfounded.
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