Brett's Cowboys Corner

The Dallas Cowboys have returned to Oxnard California to open their 66th training camp in team history and 19th at River Ridge Fields. The team arrived Sunday and will host their first practice on Tuesday.

As usual, the Cowboys open up training camp with a press conference. Jerry and Stephen Jones alongside new Cowboys HC Brian Schottenheimer took questions for about an hour from the media.

We had some good talks about Jerry’s role in Landman, and sprinkled in a few football questions. But we will discuss those on a later date because seemingly every opening press conference gets filled with the same familiar question.

How is so-and-so’s contract coming along? We saw a hold out with Ceedee Lamb that took the entirety of camp last year to figure out. The year prior, Zack Martin’s hold out lasted about two weeks.

The Cowboys now have an extension that needs to be done for edge rusher Micah Parsons. After Pittsburgh signed a three-year extension with T.J. Watt for $123 million (41 avg/yr) it seems like Micah will be north of that mark, perhaps closer to $44 million a year.

But Jerry Jones wanted to make one thing clear, “everybody here is under contract.”

While technically true, as Parsons is going into the 5th-year team option this season. Parsons wanted to be at camp, to honor an agreement he made to showcase his “leadership abilities” and out of respect to his new HC and DC.

As of right now, it is planned that Micah Parsons will do what is referred to as a “hold-in” where he will be present for most team activities but certainly won’t practice until a deal is done.

What Could Possibly Be Going On?

Well the Joneses never fully explain why they wait till the last minute to get deals done, which is a strategy that is seemingly unique when compared to the rest of the NFL.

It is understood that the NFL just consistently makes more and more money every year, and how much players get paid falls directly in-line with that gain. As each QB gets paid, the price of a QB goes up. Same goes for receivers, edge rushers and so on.

From my interpretation of what Jerry Jones describes as why they wait so long for deals is because they want to make sure the money is going to the right guy. They want a leader and an elite level player if they are paying top tier money.

“I’m big into showing anything you can do for leadership, if you are going to be in the top drawer for money.” Jerry said.

Jerry would also allude to the fact that idea has gone against them, as they are actively punishing a player for not being present at minicamps, though at this point they did not say Trevon Diggs by name. This would not be the last time they brought up his situation.

Trevon Diggs had 500K reduced from his base contract for failure to adhere to a contract clause that he would be present for a set percentage of offseason workouts. Diggs opted to do his rehab in South Florida instead of being at team facilities. Stephen Jones mentions this language is used in contracts with big name players all the time, and it was something Trevon agreed to when he signed his extension back in 2023.

“We expect a player like Trevon to be all the time…we expect him to be leading.”

Jerry values the top guys being present and believes it is important for them to be around the team, he mentions this goes all the way back to Deion, where he had some problems.

When asked about the reason for waiting on some guys, there was a surprise moment where Jerry seemingly calls out some other top contracts that may not be panning out, “Should we have waited on Trevon and Steele?”

Jerry doesn’t have a problem with paying extra money to make sure the details and money all goes to the right person.

He makes the analogy of him in the past being able to buy a Buick for $5,000 and nowadays it would cost $50,000 for a Buick. Regardless if it was the 5k or 50k Buick, Jerry has seen them breakdown just as easily.

In my opinion the number 1 thing that stood out. Was after Stephen breezed by the question of what exactly the hold up is with Micah. Jerry decided to say one more thing about the situation.

“Contracts are four…five years. There’s a lot of water under the bridge if you step out in the first two or three…you can get hit by a car.”

Jerry mentions that paying players to early can come back to burn you…and he acknowledges that he’s been burnt many times. There are clear concerns about paying out a bunch of guaranteed money, which is what every player wants now, and that it will ultimately cost the team if something goes wrong.

If I had to guess, its the guarantees holding this up. But that is just speculation, and we will see in the coming weeks when a contract gets done…or more news comes out, which is always inevitable.

One Last Note

One of the more interesting things I took away from this press conference was how the contract business is handled for the Cowboys. Stephen Jones made it very clear that it is his and Adam Prasifka’s (Director of Salary Cap) job to talk to agents when working deals.

Many stories were written about how the Cowboys have not talked to David Mulugheta, Micah’s agent and Jerry had a moment where “he didn’t even know” Micah’s agents name.

Jerry said many times that he talks to the “principal” and doesn’t talk to agents…or attorneys, which he kept bringing up.

When further pressed on this issue and why this is different than when they worked out Dak’s deal with Todd France, Stephen Jones quickly remarked, “Jerry didn’t speak to Todd France…and as he said, Jerry doesn’t speak to many agents. I do.”

Giving an interesting insight to how these contract situations have been working in Dallas for the past seasons.