While Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was riling up the fanbase with his flippant comments about the lack of urgency in getting a new deal done with All-Pro wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, his son Stephen was telling a slightly different story.
The younger Jones, the team’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, made it clear that the Cowboys are in no way preparing for life without Lamb.
“Zero thought process in not having CeeDee being a Dallas Cowboy,” he told Ed Werder and Matt Mosely on Thursday on The Doomsday Podcast.
But then, with his very next words, he immediately reminded the world that Lamb is already locked in for 2024.
“CeeDee can’t go play anywhere. He’s under contract, and we have franchise tags available, so CeeDee’s not going to be playing anywhere but Dallas. But we want this to be a great situation for him when we’re all said and done, but also a great situation so we can put a great football team on the field.”
Stating Lamb’s contractual status in such stark terms won’t win any brownie points, but it’s the cold, hard truth.
And the other 90 guys who are actually in camp were, in fact, more of a focus this week as the team made a procedural roster move that raised a few eyebrows. Lamb was placed on the Reserved/Did Not Report list on Tuesday, but Jones explained that the purpose of the re-designation was to open a temporary spot for a defensive depth player, and that nothing more should be read into it.
“I don’t think it says anything,” he said. “We just knew we had that roster spot, and when [Lamb] reports- which we certainly believe he will, at some point- hopefully with a new contract. We continue to make progress. Things are very cordial.”
Cordial, perhaps, because nothing at all has really happened of late. Clarence Hill Jr. of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that Lamb’s agent has been in Paris at the Olympics and just returned to the States.
It’s possible, then, that the lack of urgency has been on both sides of the negotiating table.
Jones admitted that Lamb’s extended no-show means the timing between him and quarterback Dak Prescott may have taken a minor hit, but he knows that the two have put in work together over the offseason. And with their connection entering its fifth year, it’s not like they’re just getting to know one another on the football field.
The upside, Jones says, is that the team’s younger wide receivers- including Ryan Flournoy, Jalen Cropper, David Durden, Tyron Billy-Johnson, and Jalen Brooks- have gotten reps they might not have seen otherwise. That will only help the club with whichever pass-catchers eventually make the regular-season roster.
But coming to new financial terms with the team’s trio of superstars is nevertheless high on the front office’s to-do list, Jones maintains.
“It’s a great situation to have, but it’s challenging when you have one of the top quarterbacks in the league and then you’ve got two of the best non-quarterback players in the league, Micah Parsons and CeeDee Lamb.
“It’s a negotiation that we’re obviously having to work hard at because you also, at the end of the day, want to be able to put some other players [on the field]. Those three guys can’t go out and play the game by themselves.”
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Of course, most Cowboys fans will quickly point out that without any of those three players in uniform and on the field, the team’s chances of winning games on anything resembling a regular basis absolutely craters.
The stage seems set for a late-camp announcement on a new deal for Lamb, similar to the one that brought guard Zack Martin back to Oxnard in mid-August of last year, or the record-breaking extension that running back Ezekiel Elliott signed in September 2019 after an even longer holdout (that itself seemed rather contentious, at least until Jones and Elliott were peddling T-shirts making fun of that whole “Zeke Who?” saga).
There’s still plenty of time for a deal to happen. The Cowboys are notorious for delaying as long as possible, dominating the summer news cycle with breathless will-they-or-won’t-they conjecture and then swooping in to look like heroes right before things get real, both saving their cash-cow players (who weren’t going to play in the preseason anyway) from any possible exposure to injury and using the break to develop their newbies.
And this time, it’s Stephen Jones who is suddenly the voice of reason, giving Cowboys fans cause to hope that the offseason of dragging their feet has simply been part of a larger plan.
“It’s certainly something that’s very doable, and we plan on doing it, because we want all three players here and we think we have the best chance to win a championship by having those three players on our roster.”
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