OXNARD, Calif. — Stephen Jones sat in a tent overlooking the Dallas Cowboys’ mock game on Tuesday and considered his dilemma.
The Cowboys executive vice president knew he and colleagues need to determine three key contractual futures.
Jones recognized, too, that strategizing the future for Dak Prescott, CeeDee Lamb and Micah Parsons is a good problem to face.
How many teams are racking their brains on how they’ll pay their homegrown 2016 fourth-round quarterback, their 2020 first-round wide receiver and their 2021 first-round edge rusher?
One.
Jones thought back to a favorite saying of his father, Cowboys team owner and general manager Jerry Jones.
“To use an old Jerryism, Santa Claus doesn't put the bicycle under the Christmas tree every year,” Jones told Yahoo Sports. “You gotta come to grips that you gotta pay for it.”
So the Cowboys continue to negotiate with wide receiver CeeDee Lamb as he holds out, and quarterback Dak Prescott, whose extension Jones says he hopes “gets done before the start of this season. I mean, that’s our goal.”
But as Lamb’s holdout stretches past three weeks, the Cowboys insist they’re not losing sleep over the All-Pro’s absence.
Part of the calm stems from a trust in Lamb’s work ethic, Jones says, “so we're not worried about the old days [when] you'd have guys come in, they've been drinking beer 'til they got their contract signed and then you got two or three weeks to get them in shape.”
And a part of the contentment stems from a glance across the league to realize that maybe the contractual grass isn’t greener than Oxnard — and maybe a holdout from one starter isn’t so bad.
The San Francisco 49ers and Brandon Aiyuk have dominated headlines throughout the last week-plus as they navigate through their future or lack thereof together.
Will Aiyuk be traded? Conversations with the New England Patriots, Cleveland Browns and Pittsburgh Steelers gained the most traction.
Will Aiyuk stay put? The longer suitors go without closing deals, the more likely a cordial settling between Super Bowl contender and 1,342-yard receiver seems.
The New York Jets, too, dominated headlines this week with a contract dispute. Months after trading for pass rusher Haason Reddick, Reddick has yet to report to camp and New York has yet to reach an agreement on a contract extension that Reddick seemed to expect upon his trade from Philadelphia.
So Reddick has now requested to be traded from the Jets mere months after he celebrated a trade to them.
Jets general manager Joe Douglas responded with the atypical public statement that “we will not trade him,” “he is expected to be here with his teammates” and oh, by the way, fines are piling.
Against that backdrop, the Cowboys have the perspective to look at Lamb’s current workout regimen in the Houston area and think: We can work with this.
“The negotiations remain very cordial and everybody's goal is to be a Cowboy in the future and come up with solutions to the challenges of their contracts,” Jones said. “Come up with those solutions that make it to where we can have all three of [Lamb, Prescott and Parsons], and we can put a good team around them.”
No trade requests are rumbling, the lone shot fired arguably an unintended one when Jerry Jones said he had no urgency to sign Lamb. Jerry Jones clarified Sunday that he meant he cared much about Lamb’s regular-season attendance than preseason, Stephen Jones adding that Lamb’s commitment to fitness is what his father had in mind.
“These guys are pros and that's what I think Jerry meant when he said there's no urgency,” Stephen Jones said. “He knows CeeDee 1) has prepared all summer with Dak and 2) he knows CeeDee's gonna keep in tiptop shape.”
Prescott holds deep trust in Lamb, whose 1,749-yard 2023 was the latest installation of a 5,145-yard first four seasons. Lamb has caught 32 touchdowns since the Cowboys drafted him in 2020, the franchise knowing receiver wasn’t yet a pressing need but describing his availability at 17th overall as a “blinking red light” to draft the best player available.
This offseason, they let walk center Tyler Biadasz, All-Pro left tackle Tyron Smith, defensive end Dorance Armstrong and more in hopes of sliding money toward Lamb, Prescott and eventually Parsons.
The calculation became more complicated as the Vikings signed receiver Justin Jefferson to a four-year extension worth $35 million per year with $110 million guaranteed, Minnesota shelling out the money without paying a quarterback as Dallas is with Prescott nor a pass rusher as Dallas soon plans to be with Parsons.
“Any top receiver influences the conversation, one way or the other,” Jones said. “Does Jefferson influence? Of course, he does. Does Amon [-Ra St. Brown] in Detroit influence? Of course he does. What they did with [A.J.] Brown in Philly; all those things they look at — then you hear everybody says, 'Oh, they’re gonna get this here or there' and everybody's ears perk up because it influences.”
The Cowboys faced a similar three-headed challenge entering 2019 before ultimately reaching extensions with running back Ezekiel Elliott, wide receiver Amari Cooper and Prescott. Jones views that success story as reason for optimism this time.
“It's just making them all fit,” he said. “We did it and we want to do it again. And the bigger thing is they're all inextricably tied to one another [and] what we're trying to do is have some money left to put some more players around them— to go get a big defensive tackle here at the wire; to go get a pass rusher.
“We've got to keep that in mind.”
Cowboys have clear plan for Lamb when he returns
The Cowboys view the question of Lamb’s return to the team as a matter of when not if.
They view his role as a focal point in their offense as similarly inevitable.
A year after Lamb averaged 10.6 targets per game and 7.9 catches per game, Dallas is eager to hone in even more. That’s not only because the club’s run game is less established than its passing weapons. Prescott and Lamb’s connection is the team’s most established offensive threat — why not lean in?
“He’s going to touch the ball a ton — for what we're going to have to pay him, he better,” Jones said. “I told Mike [McCarthy] things can't change. He’s got to be targeted 12 to 15 times a game. You got to hand it to him a couple more times. So I don't see that changing in the least bit.
“He's our No. 1 go-to guy.”
Surprised that the Cowboys would say that on the record? Team leadership views that ability to announce Lamb as an offensive emphasis and have Lamb still average 102.9 yards per game last season as why he’ll deserve the contract he’s soon expected to receive.
Offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer’s reaction when he hears Jones say the offense “better” target Lamb often?
“We should and we will,” Schottenheimer told Yahoo Sports. “CeeDee is one of the few receivers where even when people know he's getting the ball, he's got the ability to get open. He's just got a knack for knowing how to run routes and to beat leverage. And to beat what we call ‘bad leverage.’ I haven't been around a guy that, when teams obviously knew the ball was gonna go to him, he still found a way to get open.”
Dallas will need that to move from a perennial regular-season powerhouse to a team threatening deep into the playoffs. The Cowboys’ 36 wins over the past three years trail only the Kansas City Chiefs (37), which fuels organizational belief that Dallas is knocking on the door of something greater.
Still, the team’s last NFC championship game appearance and Super Bowl date back to the 1995 season.
“I just feel like we've got the right group of guys here and every now and then, it's just not your day,” Jones said. “One thing we're not gonna do is assume we're gonna win 12 games, because that's hard to do in this league and we've done it three years in a row. But I think when you're good enough in this league to win 12 games, you're good enough in this league to win the playoff games you need to, to win it.”
Lamb will be an integral ingredient to that pursuit. The front office knows it. His teammates know it. And his coaches know it.
“He's just different,” Schottenheimer said. “He's special.”
