The first waves of free agency are in the books, but the Cowboys are still looking to plug a hole on their depth chart as they move toward the 2025 season.
Executive vice president Stephen Jones said on Monday that the team is interested in adding to their receiver options beyond CeeDee Lamb. They signed Parris Campbell in March, but they also lost Brandin Cooks from a group that was lacking a top-flight second option during the 2024 season as well.
“We’re still open to looking at a really explosive number two that could upgrade us,” Jones said, via the team’s website. “But as I said, I like our room and certainly like the players we currently have.”
Former Cowboy Amari Cooper, Keenan Allen, Tyler Lockett, Odell Beckham Jr., and Robert Woods are some of the biggest names left on the open market, but they might not fit what Jones says the team is looking for at the moment. That might make the draft the spot where the team chooses to act, but it seems likely they’ll be making a move in one direction or another beore the month is over.
Sports media abhors a vacuum.
In the absence of comments from the principals to an ongoing story, reports will emerge. Some accurate, some not. One topic for such fodder in recent weeks has been the contract talks, if any, between the Cowboys and do-it-all defender Micah Parsons.
On Sunday, Cowboys executive Stephen Jones added some oxygen to the conversation, from the site of the league meetings in Palm Beach.
“I don’t want to get into any details,” Stephen Jones said, via Todd Archer of ESPN.com. “It’s not fair for anybody, other than we’ve got a great working relationship with Micah and think the world of him. Like I’ve said, we’ve had good visits with him and feel good about where we’re headed.”
Jones also was asked whether recent contracts signed by pass rushers like Maxx Crosby of the Raiders and Myles Garrett of the Browns set the market for Parsons.
“Like I said, I’m not going to get into any detail on where things are, and how far along we are or anything like that,” Jones said, per Archer. “It’s not productive.”
He’s right. And here’s what would be far more productive. Sitting down with Parsons’s agent, David Mulugheta, and getting it done. Mulugheta recently negotiated a deal for Texans cornerback Derek Stingley Jr. with no external deadline. Which means he can be trusted to do a win-win contract without a loudly ticking clock.
The Cowboys can’t be. They’ve proven it, time and again.
It would be easy, if they truly wanted to do it. Ja’Marr Chase set the bar (sort of) at $40.25 million in new-money average. If the Cowboys and Parsons start at $40.5 million per year for the four years beyond 2025, the deal negotiates itself.
Yes, agreements will be needed regarding subjects such as guarantee structure and salary de-escalators for failure to participate in the offseason workout program (the Cowboys prefer that to the traditional workout bonus). But it will be simple, if/when the two sides sit down with an earnest desire to get a deal done.
It could be finalized in a few hours. Hell, it could be hammered out in 15 minutes.
But that’s not how the Cowboys do things. They drag their spurs, thinking that the deal will somehow get better if they do. And if never, ever does.
Cowboys receiver CeeDee Lamb is about to have a rule named for him.
The NFL sent the full rules report to its 32 teams this week and included is an addition to the unsportsmanlike conduct rule. In Rule 12, Section 3, Article 1(d) the NFL has made the “nose wipe” celebration illegal.
The nose wipe is a gang sign associated with the Bloods, indicating someone is untrustworthy.
Lamb has used the “nose wipe” as a celebration since he entered the league in 2020.
Beginning next season, it will become a 15-yard penalty.
The Pro Bowl receiver replied on social media Wednesday night, writing, “smh [shaking my head], i have plenty in mind” with an unamused face emoji.
It’s close enough to April 1 to wonder whether it was all a ruse. It apparently wasn’t. It should have been.
Bruce Drennan, characterized by SI.com as a “longtime Cleveland Sports broadcaster,” has cited a “pretty darn good source within the Browns organization” in support of the notion that the Browns “are negotiating as we speak with the Dallas Cowboys for a trade for Dak Prescott.”
It is ridiculous. It is laughable. It should never have been said with a straight face. And it never should have been amplified by SI.com, or by anyone. Other than to say it’s ridiculous and laughable.
It doesn’t require any reporting to show it’s not true. (Nevertheless, multiple reports have shut it down.) It requires only common sense to know that it is, to use a technical term, bullshit.
Here’s the key fact. The Cowboys have already activated their prerogative to turn the bulk of Prescott’s 2025 salary into a guarantee. Given the cap consequences of doing that — as opposed to simply trading away his base salary without conversion — there’s no way they would do it. Period. The end. Finito.
By converting most of Prescott’s salary into a bonus, the Cowboys have pushed $36.6 million in cap space into future years. If they trade him now, it all crashes back into the 2025 cap. Put simply, if the Cowboys were going to trade him, they shouldn’t have (and wouldn’t have) restructured the deal.
As it stands, Prescott as a cap number of $52.974 million for 2025. (He also has a no-trade clause.) If the Cowboys trade Prescott before June 1, another $97.356 million would hit the cap in 2025. That would push the total cap charge to $150.33 million.
So there’s the answer. It’s NOT happening. It can’t happen. If it were ever going to happen, it would have happened before the Cowboys converted $45.75 million of Prescott’s 2025 salary into a bonus, avoiding another $36.6 million in 2025 cap charges.
Even without the restructuring, it would have been a very remote possibility. With the restructuring, it’s an impossibility. And anyone who would suggest otherwise is exposing their complete lack of knowledge or understanding regarding the way NFL contracts work.
Quarterback Trey Lance has not landed with an NFL team since his contract with the Cowboys expired earlier this month and possibilities for his next club don’t stop at the border.
Dave Naylor of TSN reports that the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders have added Lance to their negotiating list. The move gives the team exclusive rights to negotiate a contract with Lance in the event he wants to continue his career in Canada.
There’s been no sign that the 2021 49ers first-round pick is eyeing such a move, but Lance’s father Carlton did play for the team in 1993.
Lance spent most of his rookie season on the bench after being selected with the third overall pick, but took over as the 49ers’ starter to start the 2022 season. A broken ankle in Week Two ended his season and Brock Purdy’s emergence later that year led to him being traded to the Cowboys before the 2023 season. He did not play at all that year and he made one start for Dallas in 2024, so regularly playing football anywhere would be a big step up from the last four years for the quarterback.
