On Friday, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas that he doesn’t want to risk injury to Tony Romo by playing him in the regular season after the team locks up the top seed in the NFC playoff field.
So what does that really mean?
On one hand, it could mean that the Cowboys want to keep Romo healthy for the postseason, in the event that starter Dak Prescott is injured. On the other hand, it could mean that the Cowboys want to keep Romo healthy for the offseason, when they possibly will be trading him.
Yes, Jones separately has said that he wants to talk Romo into staying for 2017, which implies plenty about Romo’s current mindset. But Jones knows that his best leverage in trade talks regarding Romo may be to say, “Screw it, we’ll just keep him.”
Romo has a base salary of $14 million for 2017, which makes his contract easy to trade. If the Cowboys keep him, the cap charge will be $24.7 million; trading him would drop it to $19.6 million.
Whatever the number for Romo in 2017, Prescott’s total cap charge is $635,000 in 2017 and $725,000 in 2018, and by rule Prescott can’t get a new contract until after the 2018 regular season ends.
