Perhaps he just wanted the summer off after all. Perhaps they were just too stubborn to acquiesce until the entire summer had been wasted. Depending on whether a fan wants to side with a player or with ownership, that will all soon be water under the bridge as it appears the Dallas Cowboys and CeeDee Lamb have worked out their differences.
Clarence Hill, Jr. of ALLDLLS (formerly of Ft. Worth Star Telegram) is reporting that the extension is done, via his Twitter account.
The CeeDee Lamb deal is done, per source Cowboys got it done
ESPN’s Adam Schefter is reporting the deal if for four years, $136 million with $38 million in a signing bonus.
ESPN Sources: Cowboys and All-Pro WR CeeDee Lamb reached agreement today on a record four-year, $136 million deal that now makes him the second highest-paid non-QB in NFL history. The deal includes a $38 million signing bonus, the largest ever given to a wide receiver. Tory Dandy of CAA negotiated the deal with the Cowboys.
In reality, since Lamb plays eight or nine games in Texas every year and there are no state taxes, he likely is taking home more money than any non-QB in the NFL.
Lamb missed the entire Cowboys’ offseason while he angled for an extension, racking up over $3.7 million in fines, which are forgivable since the fifth-year option he was set to play under is considered part of his rookie contract.
The deal is just under the average annual salary of Minnesota Vikings wideout Justin Jefferson, who was also selected in the 2020 draft class. Jefferson is clocked in at $35 million per year. His deal contained $88.7 million in fully guaranteed compensation, so it will be interesting to see how close Lamb came to that amount.
The wide receiver market has recently been plagued by “a number of contracts where the team used “real but really fake” years to bloat the annual values of the contracts so that the contracts would seem larger than they really were,” per Over The Cap’s Jason Fitzgerald.
While fans lamented over how long it took to reach the agreement, this was likely what all of the back and forth was about. Lamb’s representatives likely weren’t interested in a “show” money agreement and wanted the actual value to reflect the All-Pro’s worth to the organization.
Fitzgerald explains that while this has been the case across every position, wideout has seen a littany of these types of deals where the announced money isn’t anywhere near what is real.
Players such as the Eagles’ AJ Brown, Raiders’ Davante Adams and Miami’s Tyreek Hill all have deals where the announced APY was significantly higher than the Real APY.
Once all the details of Lamb’s extension become, the numbers will show just what each side relented on.